Composition photography

Whilst I haven't truly finished exploring forced perspective photography ideas, I thought I'd take a quick detour via composition and tilt shift fake miniature photography and find some good examples of work that look real. The composition photos will look real but couldn't possibly be and the miniatures will be as expected. I think this might be a challenge because obviously the appeal of composition photo's is that the creator is unlikely to let you know whether it's real or not because they wanted to keep the audience guessing, it's a bit like magic, you know that what you've seen can't be real but you can't explain how it was done!!

Well I've found a couple of tilt shift fake miniature photos of interest, but are they miniature sets or are they real environments made to look like miniature sets?
I think in some cases the blur on the distance areas is slightly over the top but decide for yourself!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdashton/1480013373/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/thiru/1514344777/

I thought it was important to add a couple of links to wikipedia that describe the concept of tilt shift photography and fake miniature tilt shift photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_miniature_faking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_lens

I realise that we're going slightly off track here but I think that's the interest of free organic learning!!

Here are some fake composition photos that are posing as real ones.


http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/hoax-fairy-pic.jpg


http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/images/pig_sm.jpg


http://www.maj.com/gallery/DaRkSiDe/animals/megaladon.jpg


http://www.hoax-slayer.com/giant-skeleton.html

Follow the link below to go to a great web-site with a few hoax and a few real photos on:-

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/prank-hoaxes.html

Levitated Apple

In the last post I showed a couple of quick trials I did using the forced perspective idea and I indicated that I should have tried levitating the apple. Below I have shown the levitated apple and I think you'll agree that it looks better than the other photo.
I have put both pictures below so that it is easier to compare them.




I think the difficulty of forced perspective photos is finding objects to take pictures of that will make the audience step back and think.
For instance the reason the apple works in the picture above is purely because we as an audience know instinctively that apples are much bigger than the one shown. Therefore as an experimentation it is difficult to think of objects that are really going to give the wow factor. The only picture in the previous blog post that I feel gives that wow factor is the giant person and the tiny person in the room, we instinctively know that the picture looks real but the size of the people is all wrong. The car on the driveway scenario could potentially be just that, a standard sized car on the driveway, the only thing that gives it away to the audience is that the car looks like it's made of plastic and is moulded.
The man holding the giant can doesn't look real it looks like what it is a man standing a long way in front of the object in his hand, it is so easy for a picture to just looks wrong whether it be the subject matter or set. The picture below is of a friend of mine and we were trying to make it look like he was holding on to the Burj, but unfortunately it doesn't quite work because of the angle and grasp of the hand in comparison to where the camera is.



I think what I'm trying to say about this subject is that it is good when we know that something couldn't possibly be and yet the photograph in front of us appears very real and convincing, which leads us to the other area of study, the composite photograph.

How does it work?

Forced perspective is an easy concept to explain, basically the object you wish to appear large is closer to the camera than the small object. For instance one of the most recent well known examples of forced perspective is in Lord Of The Rings using Gandalf the wizard and Frodo the hobbit.
Because the film makers needed to make Gandalf appear to be much bigger than Frodo scenes with them interacting with one another had to be shot with Gandalf closer to the camera than Frodo.
I'm having trouble finding photos to demonstrate this but if you've seen the film you'll understand.

I've found some footage on Youtube of force perspective:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ddVo1c_1Gs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZYh_HRY70g

The other trick with forced perspective photos is having realistic miniatures available so that you can make someone appear giant by the angle of the shot.

I've done a couple of simple shots myself using my own hand.





I think the apple photo is reasonably effective and the lighting seems to have worked quite well naturally without any adjustments in Photoshop. The kettle photo doesn't quite work because of the surface that the kettle is resting on and the curvature at the base of the object. I think the apple picture may work even better if it is levitated slightly.

3D Hybrids Etude 2

For my second study I would like to explore the idea of forced perspective photography and photographic composition. Whilst I am looking predominately at forced perspective photography I think that because I haven't got a camera where you can adjust many of the settings or the light facilities I will look at composited photos as well. Initially I will attempt to take some simple force perspective photos with my digital camera and using Photoshop I will try and adjust the light levels to make the scene look true to life.
The purpose of the study is an interest in a series of pictures of impossible scenarios that look genuine, preferably through force perspective but with the composition as well where necessary.

I have found some examples of other peoples photos which I have shown below to give an idea to those that don't know what force perspective is:-


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective
Giant Heineken can in the man's hand.



http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/153602.html
Giant woman and small man.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve-brandon/178839409/
Toy Ferrari on the driveway.