Tips for Outdoor Photography: Perspective
In a previous newsletter, I covered lighting. Now I want to venture into perspective. Perspective, defined, is, “the sense of depth or spatial relationship between objects in a photo, along with their dimensions with respect to what viewer of the image sees.” It’s a simple term that means “how you see things.” Oftentimes, people making photos won’t go to the trouble of considering a position that differs from their own standing, straight-on viewpoint. I encourage people to change that, because who wants to look at a picture they could have seen with their own eyes? It’s far more interesting to show your viewer your own unique way of seeing.
The first thing you need to do as a photographer is move. Move left or right, up or down. Get at eye-level with animals and people. Get down to ground level like a bug, or shoot from above looking straight down, like a bird. Shifting your position gives you the power to make something mundane into something worth considering.
Bug's eye view, or as some call it, worm's eye view, gives the added advantage of providing your subject a new background. Have you ever photographed a flower in the middle of a field of other flowers, sticks, and other distractions? One way to set that flower apart is to photograph it from below, tiling the camera upward, which may enable you to change your background to sky.
Shoot from above, with a top-down perspective, and you will experience “the foreshortening of more distant features.” When looking at landscapes, your composition might seem more like shapes and contours, in an almost-abstract way. Photographing people from above, particularly with a wide lens, distorts features, making their heads seem larger and their bodies, tapered. You may have met people who request to be photographed from a high angle for this reason.
These are just a few perspectives to consider. Experiment and see what you can come up with!
Jennifer M. Ramos is a freelance photographer based in Austin Texas, and Bull Creek Foundation Member. We will run more photography tips in upcoming issues, so stay tuned!
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