Photography tricks are fun!

Are you in a photography rut?  Are you looking for fun new things to try for Children’s portraiture or even for snaps of your kids?  Well this trick that I first saw on a site called PhotoJoJo should get you having some fun.

It is a trick in perspective and optical illusions.  The idea is that one child or person is holding another in the palm of their hand, almost like a figurine.  When I was in San Diego, I decided to give it a whirl on the beach.  And then we did it again in my back yard. You can likely try this other places too – you just need a lot of space.  So think Beach, Park, the Outdoors.

What you do: Have one child or adult in the foreground and have them hold their hand out to their side, relatively flat.  Then have the other person get way back.  Position the second child so that they are just above the hand, almost touching.  These are not perfect shots – just quick snapshots (so ignore the fact that they are not color corrected and the lighting is not perfect please).  You do not want to shoot wide open on this either (hence why my 1st attempt is not as good since my daughter in back fell out of focus).  My girls did love seeing these in print. And this is something you can achieve with an SLR or even just a Point and Shoot camera.

Of note: If you take these off your camera and realize that the figurine sized subject is a tad too high, you can lasso them, and use the CTRL (CMD) key + “T” to transform them slightly.  Do this on a duplicate later.  Then if needed you can blend the edges by adding a layer mask.  Have fun playing! If you try one, please come post a link in the comments so everyone can see!

I actually liked this one best.  Since Jenna got back really far, she looked even smaller and almost more believable as a toy or figurine.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Assignments, Photography Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.