Photo tricks and trick photography
Forced Perspective – Technique #1
Perhaps the easiest and most popular form of photographic forced perspective is done while positioning the subject somewhere in the scene so that they appear particularly large or small in comparison to the world around them. The trick is particularly amplified when you can get the subject to interact with rest of the scene in way which would be unnatural or unexpected. Such as leaning on the Leaning Tower of Pisa or eating a nautical submarine that’s in the water.
When you take a forced perspective it’s best to have the foreground and background look like they are together and interacting. This can be a problem when you have a shallow depth of field so you’ll want to maximize the depth of field by using a small aperture and using a wide angle. The wide angle is also helpful for exaggerating perspective. However, the small apertures often slow the shutter speed down to much to take a sharp photo, so on all but the sunniest of days you may need to increase the ISO (if you use Auto ISO, it should do it for you). Another way to increase the believability of the interaction between subject and scenery is to remove from the composition (in camera or by cropping later) items that make the interaction too improbable. For example, if where the subject is standing in front of fence and the scenery was behind it, it would be recommended to try cropping the area where the fence resides. A final trick before I leave you with summary, if the subject is supposedly exerting force against the scenery, consider tilting the camera to help convey that movement.
Quick Tips – Forced Perspective (Background/Foreground Interaction):
- Use small apertures (larger f/numbers like f/11, f/16, or f/22).
- DSLR users should be in Av or A mode.
- Point and Shoot users can look for a landscape scene option (often represented by a mountain)… this usually does the same thing.
- Caution: Small apertures on a DSLR may show you how much dust have on your sensor which will drive you mad =).
- Choose a sunny day, you may still need to increase your ISO setting or use a flash to compensate for the small aperture.
- Put on your widest angle lens or on a Point & Shoot stay zoomed out.
- The wide angles exaggerates perspective.
- Position your subject with the approximate pose you want.
- Instruct your subject to keep the parts of their body that are to interact with background turned away from you (e.g. the palms of their hands)
- Move your body/camera location around until you get the surfaces that you want to collide (e.g. hand on building).
- Shooting from a low angle exaggerates the height of a subject near to you.
- Fire away… Lots of shoots increase the likeliness of a winner.
Here are some more examples that I’ve taken:
| Print article | This entry was posted by jbaynard on January 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm, and is filed under How To, In Camera. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
That’s really cool. But how do you keep the model still while you do this? How many shots do you usually go through to get that perfect one? My favorite is the kicking the barn one.
about 1 year ago
i did forget to ask… do you have a recommendation for a wide angle lens? IS there a good site you recommend to compare camera accessories and all that jazz?
about 1 year ago
The key to keeping the model still is finding a pose that is relatively comfortable for them and then moving yourself to make the scene work. I usually take a burst of 2-3 photos per angle to compensate for my or the models slight movements and I like to try at least one other angle per pose if I can. If do a simple pose, like hand on a building, and you’re not overly picky you can get a fun shot on the first click.
As for wide angle lens, I assume you mean a wide angle rectilinear zoom? I chose the Canon EF-S 10-22. Mostly because it had better than most barrel and pincushion distortion control throughout the range (It may seem odd with site like this, but I’m not a big distortion fan). But there are some others that offer some interesting options… the Sigma 10-22 is the cheapest and well reviewed. Tokina makes one with one with a f/4 throughout the range. For fisheye you can get a zoom Tokina 10-17 (which is somewhat not fishey zoomed in which is plus), and Sigma makes 10mm fish. If you want a circle fisheye on a cropped sensor camera you only good option is the Sigma 8mm.
For reviews (besides Amazon) I like:
Fred Miranda Reviews
The Motley Pixel