A pilot study on the applicability of digital close range photogrammetry to deformation measurements on large structures was conducted on a water reservoir wall in Switzerland. Although photogrammetry is not capable of solving all problems connected with deformation measurement and analysis tasks on reservoir walls, it may be a very useful tool for the of conventional geodetic measurements, particularly if the repeated 3-D coordinate measurement of a large number of points is required in short time intervals. If reasonable solutions for signalising reservoir walls can be found, photogrammetric data capture may be completed within minutes. Processing can be widely automated and the accuracy potential may be in the order of 2-3 millimetres using today's off-the-shelf high-resolution stillvideo cameras, with a further improvement expected in the near future.