A few months back we published a collection of Forced Perspective images which was very popular with readers.

Forced perspective is defined as ‘a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is.’ (Wikipedia)

This is far from a recently popular thing for photographers to do. Here’s a great example from 1918 which was submitted by one of our readers – Graham Parkhurst – that illustrates it from 90+ years ago.

The picture is of 18,000 men preparing for war in a training camp at Camp Dodge, in Iowa.

A few facts about the image:

• Length from base to Shoulder: 150 feet
• Right Arm: 340 feet
• Length of Torch and flame: 1000 feet
• Total Length: 1490 Feet
• Number of men in body and head of figure: 2,000
• Number of men in right arm: 1,200
• Number of men in torch: 2,800
• Number of men in the flame only: 12,000
• Total men: 18,000

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

A 90 Year Old Example of Forced Perspective Photography

Original post by Darren Rowse

Weekly Assignment

Ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night were a common theme in our Scary or Spooky assignment. There were definitely some scary and spooky entries this week but we had a very clear winner with this week’s votes. The winner this week was Murtasma’s Skeletor shot. This elaborate costume was both scary and well done. Our first runner up was a_brewley’s “Thing under the bed”. She took this shot while her daughter was asleep! Thank goodness she didn’t wake up. One thing we learned from this shot was that lots of us mods were scared of finding things under the bed as kids. It was gritty and scary and all kinds of film noir and probably a few of us found ourselves checking for things under the bed again (definitely click on the image to see the detail in it since the thumbnail doesn’t do it justice). And last, but not least was SNOOPY’s spooky black cat. While not as scary as our other winners, the black cat is classic halloween and the detail captured in both the fur and eyes was amazing. Congrats to all of this week’s winners and best of luck to everyone in the next assignment.

Speaking of the next assignment, our current assignment is Architectural Detail. Sometimes buildings have some great architectural details that we miss out on because we’re so concerned with capturing the bigger picture. But this week we want you to focus on some of those smaller details. As usual, a quick reminder of the rules for those of you who want to enter the weekly assignment competition. First, your photo must have been taken between 21 October – 4 November 2009. Second, your post must include the words “Assignment: Architectural Detail” and the date the photo was taken. Finally, your EXIF should be intact and it’s useful if you can include some of the main information (e.g. camera, lens, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc). You’ll need to head over to the Assignments area of the forum to enter. Next week’s assignment will be “The Economy” so start shooting.

Hot Threads

• How to capture visual opportunities in bad weather: Jim Bryant offers up another one of his informative tutorials, this time on the subject of photographing in less than ideal weather. This one is useful whether you’re going into summer or winter, so if you’ve ever felt the need to stay indoors when the weather is frightening, this tutorial might change your mind.
• Lightroom 3 Beta Released: Whether or not you’re a current Lightroom user, it may interest you to know that Adobe has released it’s upcoming version of Lightroom as a beta. There are still bugs and issues in it, but if you’ve used it come join in the discussion on the forum and tell us which features you’re most interested in.
• Halloween Tangerine: A tangerine may not be a typical halloween food, and the normally aren’t all that scary, but mmatasic shows us how to turn an ordinary tangerine into something appropriate for halloween.
• The Haunted Path Halloween Fun: In keeping with the season, here’s a creepy photo for your halloween. It’s definitely at least a little haunting!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (25-31 Oct ‘09)

Original post by Nicole

If you are like me you had a kaleidoscope as a kid. You would look through one end and turn a dial and the world would be displayed as a mirrored fractured shape. Thanks to Photoshop you can create kaleidoscopes from your photos. Any image with interesting color and shapes will work just fine.

Step 1

Convert the background layer to a regular layer by double clicking it and click Ok.

Step 2

Select the layer and use the Move tool to rotate to 60 degrees and position it over one corner of the image canvas making sure one side of the image sides crosses two sides of the canvas.

Step 3

Use the Magic Wand tool to select the empty background, choose Select > Inverse to select the shape and choose Select > Modify > Contract and contract the shape by one pixel. Now choose
Image > Crop to crop the image to the shape itself. It is important to do this to remove the anti-aliasing that Photoshop applies to the image edge as it rotates it.

Step 4

Duplicate the image layer.

Choose Image > Canvas size, click Relative and set the width to around 3 times the current image height (NOT its width), and the height to 2 times the current height. Select the middle top of the nine positioning boxes and click Ok.

Step 5

Choose View > Snap to > All and make sure View > Snap is selected. Click the Move tool and the top layer of the image and drag the left edge over the right until the W: value is -100%. Ensure the piece is lined up against the edge of the piece on the layer below.

Step 6

Merge these two layers by selecting the top one and press Control + E (Command + E on the Mac).

Duplicate this merged layer, select the top layer and choose Edit > Free Transform and, in the tool options area, select the middle bottom of the 9 point grid to fix the point around which the shape rotates. Set the Rotation to 30 degrees.

Step 7

Press Control + J (Command + J on the Mac) and then Control + Shift + T (Command + Shift + T on the Mac). This duplicates the current layer and repeats the transformation on it.

Repeat this until the kaleidoscope is complete – four times in all.

Step 8

Merge all the layers. Use the crop tool to select around the canvas. You can drag outwards if necessary to add back in any of the image that extends beyond the outside of the image canvas.

Step 9a

Now you can get creative with the shape. For example, you can make a duplicate of the shape and place it in the middle of the original shape sizing this second version down to a small size and then cropping the final image to a square shape. Use the Alt and Shift keys (Option and Shift on the Mac) to size the shape down leaving the middle in the same place and in proportion.

Step 9b

You can fill the middle with another kaleidoscope if desired. Here I used a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to match the colors of the two kaleidoscopes better.

Step 9c

You can select the shape and choose Edit > Define Pattern to make it a pattern. You can then fill a larger image with it so it displays as a repeating shape.

There are lots of creative ways you can use your Kaleidoscope.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

How to Create Kaleidoscope Patterns from Your Photos

Original post by Helen Bradley

The white-room studio look has become really popular lately, especially for children. I love it for so many reasons:

• Kids are unpredictable, especially when you don’t know them. Removing the element of not only trying to catch the right moment, but also crossing your fingers hoping that the ‘moment’ happens in the right position within the frame of ideal natural light (while chasing them around) gives me more energy to actually focus on the child.
• It is a more affordable option for clients who can’t afford to hire you for a location shoot. I spend about 30 mins with kids in my studio.
• The lighting set-up is easy and optimal for whatever the kids decide to throw at you (sometimes literally!)

There are, however, a few drawbacks

• If you’re not a pretty decent photographer, it can be hard to produce the type of images you see in your head and without the element of a location/surrounding (sunny day in the park?) the only emotion you will convey through this style of photography is that which comes directly from the kids and you have to be pretty darn good to get kids who don’t know you who feel a bit strange in a white room filled with big flashing lights to open up and show you emotion. And then when they do, you have to be ready to catch it in a split-second.
• The right equipment can be really expensive. There are some really cool and clever ways of doing high key studio without any lights at all, but they’re not at all ideal for children as they involve staying in the same place within the set-up and kids never want to sit in the same place.
• You need quite a large space for this type of set-up

So once you’ve got your set up and your subjects, then what? Last week, I wrote an article called Helping Your Client Prepare for Their Shoot – Dress to Match the Sofa. Step one to making it a colourful shoot is helping your clients prepare. Something I forgot to mention is that in terms of clothing, especially for boys, shirts with collars are great for the close-up.

With a stark, bright white background, how do you make the shoot colourful? Obviously the clothing is important. After that, you just have to have a few tricks up your sleeve to get the kids to loosen up and have fun.

Having an enthusiastic assistant is a must. Someone who can stand behind your and interact with the kids in a way that will engage them and make them laugh. Sometimes the parents can be helpful and sometimes they can make things more tense. When the family comes in, I can usually tell right away what type they are and sometimes I offer them a cup of tea and a comfy chair to relax during the shoot and sometimes, I even direct the parents as to what side from which they should be engaging the kids to get them to look in the right direction.

Things I do in a typical shoot:

• I get down on the floor, laying on my belly, and I encourage them to do the same. They put their face in their hands, lean up on their elbows, feet up, feet down, roll over.
• We then both sit up cross legged and I show them all the poses to do. The posed shots aren’t always the best, especially the first sets, but it gets them in the frame of mind to be thinking of cool things to do and from there, they usually direct their own shoot!
• My assistant once found a big bag of ball pit balls in a location I was hiring for the day and whispered in my ear ‘get ready’. He opened the bag and dumped the entire 100 balls onto the floor and the baby (about 18 months) went wild. The shoot when from tense to full of life immediately and turned out really well.
• Give them something to keep them still for just a moment – like an entire cake! I love love love the messy sessions! You get tons of smiles and the kids are engrossed in something for a while, although not sitting in a tense, forced pose.
• When you have siblings, getting them to interact well on camera can sometimes be tricky, but mostly if you just let them go for it (and have all ofyour lights insured against getting knocked over by wrestling boys!) then those can be so much better than when kids are on their own.
• When kids are reluctant, I sometimes start by photographing their parent(s) just so they can see it’s all ok. I also let them push the button to trigger the lights or push the shutter to take a photo. The strobes can be scary when you’re little so knowing how they work helps when kids are apprehensive.
• I always have a ladder handy to get some down shots to convey a sense of smallness (hey, kids are little!) or get them from another angle. Getting them to jump up towards you with their hands raised while up on the ladder is wicked cool, especially with a fish eye lens and a kooky angle.
• Running. Seems easy but not really so easy! Get the child to stand at the back of the room or background and run towards you. The strobes need a second to recycle, so you can’t shoot 10 frames as they’re running. I wait until the split second they’re in the right spot running straight at me and fire the trigger. We can do that up to 10 times and the kids absolutely LOVE it. It’s a great thing to start with because they loosen up.
• Screaming. I mentioned this once in an article about tips for photographing children. But a kid will be your best friend the moment you allow them to scream their ever-lovin-head off indoors! This would be great from up on the ladder as I mentioned earlier. Tell them certain things to scream “I love poo!” You might get tense looks from the parents, but they will love the photos in the end and that’s really all that matters!

Before starting my studio, I was really nervous about the part where I had to interact with the kids and help them along in their shoot with poses or just fun ideas in general but it came so naturally and after the first couple shots, the kids often take over and come up with tons of shots. And if you’re confident, the parents will be confident so don’t let on if you’re secretly crapping it!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

White Background Colourful Kids – Ideas for High Key Studio Photography

Original post by Elizabeth Halford