Utilizing Special Effects in your Photos - Perspective Distortion
Saturday, June 7, 2008 @ 03:39
Perspective distortion is a handy little technique that allows you to make one part of the subject of your photo appear much larger than the rest of the subject, or much larger than any other objects included in the photo. Perspective distortion increases the closer the camera is brought to the subject.
For example, if you are doing portrait work and want to make a close-up of someone's face, simply centering the picture on the face will often make the subject's nose appear distinctly larger than the other features on the face. Now, of course, most photographers avoid this by choosing their camera angle and lighting source wisely, but what would happen if you wanted to create this sort of effect for some reason? Maybe you are shooting a specialty photo and specifically want a certain part of your subject's face to be spotlighted.
To purposely introduce perspective distortion, you could even choose to take your photo with a fisheye or wide-angle lens trained much closer to your subject than you would normally. You can create all sorts of neat effects by playing with perspective distortion.
While most photographers try to eliminate all hints of perspective distortion, others will go out of their way to introduce it in order to add a decidedly artistic effect to their photos. They may also use the phenomenon to emphasize certain aspects of their subject in order to underscore some specific aspect of their shot, usually in a fun and playful manner.
So, while perspective distortion may have been something you went out of your way to avoid in the past, try playing around with it in some of your future photos. You might just amaze yourself with the weird and unexpected results it can produce, especially if you have a fisheye or wide-angle lens in your equipment bag.
