My 52 Week Photography Challenge Week 5
Use Perspective in Photography
Perspective. It's how you see something from your point of view. Don't like the way something looks? Change your point of view. Sounds like good life advice but in this fifth week of my 52 week photography challenge we are talking about using perspective in photography.
By changing point of view in photographs we alter the apparent size and distance of objects and their relationship to each other. We've all probably seen the old Leaning Tower of Pisa pictures where people appear to be pushing against the tower. This is called forced perspective. Using objects apparent size and relationship to each other creates this optical illusion and it's just one way of using perspective creatively in photography. Let's take a look at some others.
Diminishing Perspective
The farther an object is from the camera the smaller it appears. This illusion is used to good effect in forced perspective photographs but we can use it in diminishing perspective too. In diminishing perspective an object appears to get smaller and smaller and recedes to a point in the distance. This is a common perspective in landscape photographs that have a highway leading off into the distance. I've used this effect many times in the past and it's a great way to emphasize the vastness of open space in a landscape. There may not be much detail in the land but the highway leading into the distance for miles and miles gets the point across nicely.
Height Perspective
Height perspective changes the viewers point of view by photographing from above or below the subject. Photographing from a high perspective can be used to reduce the power of a subject. Photographing my lens from above it seems kind of diminished in it's size. Photographed that way it doesn't grab your attention. It doesn't seem as powerful. This same technique can be used in portraiture as well to bring out the humanity or sensitivity of a subject or perhaps their vulnerability such as a big, burly guy feeling very lost in the world. This could convey to the viewer how depression makes a person feel and that's a powerful message just by changing the point of view in the image.
Photographing from a low perspective has the opposite effect of a high perspective. By shooting from a low point of view we give power to the subject. This Canon 70-200mm lens photographed from below seems much more massive and powerful photographed this way. We can use this effect to emphasize the subject and make them seem larger than life. Lie on the ground and photograph up to frame a flower. Though only a few inches tall it might seem to tower into the sky as if from an ant's view of the world.
There are many different ways of using perspective in photography. Some of them I don't fully understand like linear perspective which uses elements of diminishing perspective but not exactly the same. I would have liked to include that one too but feel that I'd like to understand it better before posting anything I don't know to be true. For the sake of full disclosure I'll also say the camera lens images and the featured image, which I shot with my cell phone, are the only ones I managed to get this week. The weather and sinus weren't very cooperative this week and after missing the week 4 post I really wanted to complete the week 5 challenge but I digress. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow.
Certainly there are many interesting aspects to using perspective in photography and I've learned a lot in the process this week. I hope I've given you some things to use on your own photography journey. If you have questions or comments feel free to drop me an Email or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for reading!