Upon viewing forced perspective photos from my peer students' blogs, I learned how difficult it is to get the "perfect" picture. The collaborative exam day slides assignment did assist me in what one could improve on as well as some decent examples that I'd be interested in recreating, but my success with the part 1 work was minimal. I have decent foundations in photography, and I do understand forced perspective photography and how it works. However, I just could not come up with original, sensical ideas.
I have the same dilemma in my film class; coming up with solid ideas. If I'm given an idea with all the specifications, I can definitely execute it. However, truly venturing and creating a concept that nobody else has done before was a struggle. It's not that I'm attempting to be a perfectionist, but I just wasn't satisfied with a majority of the concepts I was planning. So instead of restricting myself to those concepts, I just went out with my camera to different areas around my apartment complex (or just within my own apartment) and a bag of random objects. Even then, it was a struggle; I literally spent that time being stagnant, with the exception of the shoe collection shot. So I thought: maybe I need to think with a more open mind, and be humble with simpler topics. Thus, I went out with my camera to just look at things and see what they could serve as. That's how I came up with the second part of my set, with the basketball hoop and hanging from the fence.
 |
| Architecture/Structure | Manual | f/7.1, 1/200, 400 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 | Flash |
Below is an explanation as to how I attained this photo. I enjoyed the quality of these photos in the technical sense, but I wasn't satisfied with the forced perspective aspect with it. I went with it anyways since it looked kinda nice to show off these colors and my shoes on the staircase.
 |
| BTS | This was my workflow for making this photo. I took two photos with one perfectly fitting the Stan Smith (white shoe) and one perfectly fitting the Vince Carter AF-1's (brown/red shoe). Keep in mind that I am not actually in the shoe, but the forced perspective makes it appear as if I am. Merge the two, and we get the final image. |
 |
| Movement/Action | Manual | f/6.3, 1/500, 100 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 |
 |
| Movement/Action | Manual | f/10, 1/250, 100 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 |
In the above two pictures, I put my camera on a Manfrotto tripod and tilted the head 90 degrees in order to get the right orientation, though, in retrospect, I could've gotten more horizontal space by leaving the camera in its' natural orientation. I didn't really need to worry about the merging of the foreground and background since that wasn't being manipulated in the photo. When shooting, I used the timer function and waited until my camera took a burst of photos. It was awkward to time because it would delay first, and then take the photos. Since it was already difficult attempting to get my body to be in such a position, my facial expression didn't need any "fakeness" to it since struggle is an expression I already would have in such a position. This concept was simple, so I was satisfied with it's simple result. It's probably not the best stretch of innovation I've had, but it's alright. In the future, I would like to use a shallower depth of field in order to actually focus out the background a little (so a wider aperture), and to eliminate the large amount of ground taking up literally 2/3 of the photo.
 |
| Free Choice | Manual | f/6.3, 1/500, 100 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 |
Overall, I am not a good forced perspective photographer even with the assistance of other photographers, mostly because any idea that I can think of (which isn't a lot) was probably done already before. Sure; one might say, "just do it better" but there's only so much one can do to manipulate one's environment to the point where it appears ridiculous, at least to my eyes.
I showed more growth in my process as well as growth in being humble rather than anything in the photos themselves, in my opinion. I already understood a lot of the settings of the camera and all the technical things involved with photography, but creating an idea and setting it up well is a process I'm not too familiar with since I enjoy naturally created photos with slight post-editing.
No comments:
Post a Comment