Chris Edwards reveals how you can play around with perceptions by adjusting the distance, light and size of objects with special-effects lenses.
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| High and wide: manipulate shots with a wide-angle lens – ideal for photographing sports such as skateboarding | Image Source: telegraph.co.uk |
Photography is as much about subverting the way we look at the world as capturing it. Nothing helps with that subversion more than choosing lenses that let the photographer bend space from behind the viewfinder.
Because they capture and focus light from a much larger area than the human eye can perceive directly – our normal field of view is more or less that of a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera – wide-angle lenses have become one of the photographers’ main tools for reshaping space. They bring objects into the frame that our eyes cannot see without looking to one side or another, and change the way we view the scene.
Glen Friedman’s first choice when shooting skateboarders has often been the wide-angle lens. It’s a kind of lens that demands that the photographer gets close to the action, but it’s a technique that pays off by capturing the energy of the sport. With the board close to the lens, it appears much bigger than even the rest of the skater’s body and the surrounding landscape, giving the shot an epic quality.
A similar approach often yields quirky, amusing and sometimes more intimate portraits than the longer focal-length lenses that teachers normally recommend. Because the lens accentuates closer objects, the shots can seem more like caricatures than portraits. But they are effective for turning what would be a generic pose into something special if the shot is taken looking down at the subject, possibly with their hands outstretched towards the camera to make them seem much larger.
"A number of Nikon cameras can recreate the miniature effect electronically."
Telephoto lenses on the other hand compress distance, making objects that are quite spread out seem to almost be on top of each other. Thanks to this effect, they can bring street scenes to life by emphasising the close-packed hustle of the city. Or they can make wildlife at a distance seem a bigger part of the landscape.
A major trend in the past few years has been to exploit special-effects lenses much more. One example is the tilt-shift or perspective-control lens. These slide the lens element in different directions to steer the light in unusual ways.
Originally created to let photographers take pictures looking up at tall buildings from ground level without their walls appearing to bend inwards, the tilts and shifts can be exploited to create a range of special effects. One used a lot by a number of photographers is the “miniature” effect, recreating the shallow depth of focus of a macro lens but on a landscape scale. The narrow band of sharpness can make even the biggest house look like a model if shot from a distance and above.
You can subvert the miniature idea in novel ways. The Skrekkøgle art group even went to the extent of making a giant fake €1 coin that it placed on the bonnet of a sports car, a telephone box and next to a shopping trolley to reinforce the “model village” illusion of scale made possible by tilt-shift manipulation.
Although you need a true tilt-shift lens for the full range of possibilities, a number of Nikon cameras have a mode that recreates the miniature effect electronically, giving you another way to bend space for that unusual shot.
Hello! I am Joshua Eaves, a photographer by trade. Like my Facebook page for more helpful techniques and guidelines in photography.
