With all of the bad things going on in the world, there are also plenty of good things happening. I’m trying my best to be optimistic and stay positive. Many of us flip through hundreds of photos a day, giving them the merest glance. I’m asking you to linger on this one a little longer, and think kind thoughts.
April Fool’s Day is approaching, and if you are thinking of a trick for your kids or grandchildren, you can do it with photo tricks. This can be done in several ways, but perhaps the most fun is the use of forced perspective—a way photographers use optical illusions to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger, or smaller than it actually is.
This is going to go over best with really young children. You can set up a shot to make the child look bigger or smaller than an object in the frame, and give it to the kid to “fool Grandma” or “fool Dad.” It takes a tiny bit of pre-planning but isn’t much work, and doing it creates a warm memory you share with the child.
You might want to use familiar objects that are part of the child’s everyday world—a stuffed toy, a porch railing, your car—for instance, you can set up a shot so that the child seems to be balancing the car on one upturned hand.
Photo manipulation and trick photography has been present since the beginning of the photographic medium in the 1800s. In 2012, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York showed how photographers long before the digital era regularly employed techniques of manipulation in their work. Mia Fineman, assistant curator of photography at the Met, told PBS, “Fake decapitation was the LOLcats of the 19th century.”
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Photo tip: For successful forced perspective shots, use a tripod; use a wide-angle lens, and an aperture to keep subjects in focus (f16 of f22). If you want to force perspective to create an illusion of size then use two subjects that are universally recognized–the palm of a hand and a car, or a fence post and a skier.
“Stay Posted” is from the series: Wish You Were Here
Photographer Willliam Eggleston is known for legitimizing colour photography as art. His photos are a visual treat without clichés—no sunsets, no lighthouses. Instead, he has ordinary scenes and everyday objects—things that we mostly pass by without notice.
As Eudora Welty says in her introduction to Eggleston’s book The Democratic Forest (1989), one of his photographs might include “old tyres, Dr. Pepper machines, discarded air-conditioners, vending machines, empty and dirty Coca-Cola bottles, torn posters, power poles and power wires, street barricades, one-way signs, detour signs, No Parking signs, parking meters and palm trees crowding the same curb.”
Eggleston looks at the world in a democratic way; all things, even the most banal, are worth photographing. It’s a form of mindfulness—being aware and concentrating on the moment.
“I just wait until [my subject] appears, which is often where I happen to be. Might be something right across the street. Might be something on down the road. And I’m usually very pleased when I get the image back. It’s usually exactly what I saw. I don’t have any favorites. Every picture is equal but different.” – William Eggleston
When I’m in that zone, I take time to observe everything around me. I find it relaxing and meditative. And it can lead to photos of brushes and brooms!
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Photo tip: Try taking photos just where you happen to be. In the coffee shop, in your backyard, in the parking lot. You don’t need to go to Mt. Everest to get good photos.
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept that roughly translates to “imperfect beauty.” It’s an aesthetic that comes from Buddhist teaching; it describes a beauty that’s imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
Though there is something appealing about fresh new things wrapped in plastic, we often prefer old, worn-out things. I think of my old LPs with their crackle and pops; my t-shirts from Japan in the 1980’s; a faded hockey team photo from 1972; a baseball glove from 1987. You have your own long list, I’m sure.
Lots of times you may find yourself seeking this wabi-sabi aspect in your photographs. It’s something I do often in my photography–preferring to shoot a run-down street sign over a shiny new one. The lyric I’ve seen most often invoked in discussing wabi-sabi is from “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
There could be many interpretations of the faded “wrong way” sign in the photo above: this is the wrong way to maintain a street sign, or it’s just a sign of the times. It might as well say, “Nothing lasts forever.”
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Photo tip: Juxtaposition can lead to visual interest. Try including an object in the foreground that seems incongruous with the rest of the scene.
Sometimes you are in a hurry and don’t have much time to take a photo, but the light is right and there are a lot of interesting elements before you. You snap maybe one or two images, then the moment is gone. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. But it is bound to be an interesting photo if the light is good and the scene has a lot to offer.
Photo tip: Good light is often the key to good photos. Make note of the time of day when you see nice light. It will vary from season to season.