Photography has never been a more accessible pastime. With a huge portion of the world’s population carrying smartphones wherever they go. It’s hard to escape these devices in normal life. And this gives most people the chance to take pictures at their leisure. Whether you’re using a fancy mirrorless camera or a cell phone, though, it’s important to find ways to keep your photography interesting. To help you out with this, this post is will be exploring perspective, and the effect it can have on your photos.
What Is Perspective?
Perspective has a couple of different meanings, though the one this post is talking about is a very tangible one. When you think about the memories you have from growing up, you may remember seeing the world from a different place. With your field of view at a different height when you’re young, the world looks and feels like a completely different place. A lot of hobby photographers ignore this crucial element of their picture’s composition. Thankfully, though, using it to your advantage is easier than you might expect.
How Does Height Make A Difference?
When thinking about perspective in photography, most people’s first thoughts will go to height. Lifting a camera up and down will make a huge difference to your photos, with pictures taken from waist height looking like the view of a child, and those which have been taken up high looking like an adult’s view. The approach is often used in cinema to take point of view shots, and real estate agents will also use it to manipulate the way rooms appear.
Along with simply changing the height of your camera, you should also think about the way that it has been tilted. Pointing the lens upwards will make your subject look larger and more imposing, with shots like this often being used to make actors look taller. Pointing it down will make the subject look diminutive. And this can be used to make a building or a car look like a small toy.
Looking To The Horizon
Mastering perspective takes a lot more than simply changing the position of the camera. The angle which the picture is taken from also plays a large role in this. And this is where horizon lines come in. The most eye-catching pictures will have lines which start at the back of the scene and end at the very back. Forcing the person viewing it to follow a natural path with their eyes. Having the right horizon lines in a picture can change the way that it looks entirely, but this is trickier than you might think. Reading about the use of horizons in artwork can be a good way to achieve this goal.
Using Your Focus
The way that a camera focuses is much like your eyes. With the object which is in view being clear, and the areas around it blurring. Certain lenses, known as tilt-shift lenses, are designed to manipulate the way a camera focuses, forcing a slightly different perspective. This can be used to make towns look miniature, along with loads of other artsy effects, though it doesn’t come cheap. This is something which you should only invest in if you’re looking to do some proper experimenting.
Inspiring Yourself
It isn’t always easy to find new things to take photos of. When you’re struggling to find a subject, though, you won’t be able to improve your skills. And this is a real shame. To get around this, you’re going to need to give yourself some inspiration. And this is something which can take some time. One of the best ways to do this is by browsing websites like Instagram. A lot of people post in places like this. Making them excellent for those who’d like to learn a thing or two about perspective.
Along with this, though, it could also be worth pushing yourself to make some posts. Websites like Clickasnap let you get paid for your photos, simply by posting them and letting people view them. Posting on social media can be gratifying, too, but won’t have quite the same to offer. This gives you a good record of your perspective experiments. Making it easy to see what you may need to do to add some more variety to your work in the future. You need to nurture a skill like photography, using it as much as possible.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to get started on making some money from your photography. A lot of people struggle with this sort of work. Finding it hard to know what they need to do when they’re trying to improve a skill like this.
*This post is collaborative and may contain affiliate links.
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