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It takes me a while trying to understand "dangling off" as well as "turrets" in the following context, have looked up all the meanings of turret in dictionary but none makes any sense here in the context:

the context has been edited and here I have given all about bees in this book...as the "to dangling off turrets waving butterfly nets" part is just after a DASH, doesn't this mean it's still talking about how to get rid of bees? I was supposing that they were waving butterfly nets to avoid bees...thus was stuck by "dangling off turrets"....now maybe they are just the description of other images..?

pages 122–123 LILY COLE IN EARTHQUAKE-DAMAGED ROOM

WHADWAN, GUJARAT, INDIA, 2005

British Vogue

‘We were in the most amazing abandoned palace with giant rooms shaken by the huge earthquake four years previously’, recalls Lily, ‘it had never been restored and so existed eerily like some large film-set or a haunted house Disneyland attraction. What an adventure those ten days in India were: from getting locked into rooms to avoid the thousands of stinging bees that swarmed at midday – it was each for himself fighting for hats, skirts and so on to hide under – to dangling off turrets waving butterfly nets ...’

Ragi Dholakia:‘One particularly hot March whilst shooting in a 13th century palace I noticed a few hornets in the courtyard outside. As the morning progressed it got worse and soon the team’s way in and out was buzzing with hundreds of giant hornets. Members of the crew started to be stung. We shut the doors and windows in the hope the swarm would disperse. It didn’t. After being trapped in the room for an hour the angry insects started to infiltrate the room. We resorted to lighting newspaper to smoke towels which covered our heads and making a speedy dash for it.’

From Pictures by Tim Walker

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    The primary definitions for "dangling" and "turret" seem to make sense to me in this context: what is it about them that seems wrong to you?
    – Max Williams
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 15:55
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    “dangling off” here is probably a bit of hyperbole, but all the words have their usual meaning. Probably more literally described as “leaning dangerously far over the side of a turret with our butterfly nets in our outstretched hands”
    – Jim
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 16:00
  • You may have missed the underlying ... from getting locked into rooms to dangling off turrets ...
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 16:11
  • Not sure that dangling and leaning over are the same thing. I agree it is hyperbole: they are hanging off the turret (by a rope?)....
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 16:12
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    I can't find a shot with actual dangling, but this page has a Walker image of Lily Cole in an Indian turret (and another of her with a butterfly net), and it's very easy to imagine her leaning out of or hanging off of the turret. And that palace has lots of similar turrets.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 16:39

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It is easy to imagine someone leaning precariously from a turret with a butterfly net to try to capture some wayward lepidopteran. One might lean far enough out to exaggeratingly refer to it as "dangling". Here's the turret in my imagination. Think of leaning out from one of the castellations for this purpose:

enter image description here

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  • "Here's the turret in my imagination." I've had lots of things in my imagination, but never a turret. Your brain must be one wild place!
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 20:00
  • Oh, it is, @HotLicks, it is! :-)
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 20:41
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    A turret's a place where you can really let your hair down!
    – David Garner
    Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 17:27

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