A different perspective.

Yesterday's blog (click here) was on perspective and I thought it would be good to go into the topic with more detail. I find that diagrams help a lot when trying to explain something, especially for me as I am essentially a visual learner. The photographs above were taken in Wellington, New Zealand, during a time when the world knew nothing about the Covid virus.

The first thing I want you to notice is that the bronze statue is the same size in both images. This is always a good idea when playing with this effect. When framing the shot it is important to keep the foreground subject the same size in the viewfinder. This usually requires a combination of moving and zooming until you are successful. I have grid lines in my viewfinder that I use to compare components of a scene and line the image up accordingly.

Secondly, there is great value in lining up parts of the foreground and background. Notice that, in both photos, the top of the man's head is just touching the top of the tree canopy on the far side of the bay. To do this, I had to lie on the ground for the top image as the further back I got the higher the elevation was. When my wife accompanies me on such journeys she is always disdainful of the worsening condition of my clothing as dirt seems to be synonymous with getting the shots I want.

The change in perspective is mostly about ratios although lens distortions can come into play. It top image was photographed with a 107 mm (relative) lens while I was quite far from the statue and the bottom one shot with a 35 mm focal length (relative). The difference is a factor of just over three. When everything is lined up as discussed above that 3x magnification of the lens causes the background to be enlarged by the about same factor relative to the foreground (wide angles cause more distortion so the relative size of anything close to the lens does not exactly correspond with reality). If I would have measured my distance to the stature in both shots I would find that the distance would be about three times farther in the top photo.

This is one of the lessons I teach in my photography courses and it has enormous implications for composition. By backing up and zooming in proportionately you can vary the relationship of the foreground to the background. This affects the relative size, presence, and first impressions in an image. If you had to estimate the height of both statues the top one would likely warrant a higher value than the bottom one. This is part of the idea of perspective. It lets you look at things from a different point of view, literally.

Thanks for reading.     Ericspix     Eric Svendsen

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