Perspective is very important when you are composing your pictures, yet most people never even think about it. I am five feet tall (yes, I know, I am short). My husband is six feet tall. My son is three feet tall (he’s only 3, but it works for this example!). We all have a different perspective when taking pictures. Now imagine that we are all standing the same distance away from a street sign, holding a camera at eye level. While we are all taking a picture of a street sign, we will have all captured a different view of the same sign. Understanding and using perspective techniques can make a big difference in the stories that your photos tell. Take the following three shots, for example:
The first image would be a person who is 5 feet tall, the second would be a person 6 feet tall, and the third would be a person only 3 feet tall.
As you can see, three pictures were taken of the same subject, but we have three totally different pictures because of the different perspectives.
There are two meanings of “perspective” in relation to photography, and they are both important to the outcome of your photographs.
The one I am going to discuss here, is your personal perspective. This is the mental point of view of the photographer; it is how the photographer wants the subject to be seen, or what story they wants to tell with physical viewpoint. Imagine a kitten sleeping on your bed. If you get close, filling the frame with that kitten, you might convey a sense of cuteness (the “awwww” factor!). But if you were to stand back a few feet, and take a picture of the whole room, there might be a lot of extra “stuff” cluttering up the picture. You might capture a laundry hamper overflowing, a pile of towels on the dresser, and/or the unmade bed. These two pictures are of the same thing, but convey very different stories!
This is important. Very important. This is so important, that I am willing to sacrifice pictures of my own house to make this point clear!! I have a toddler, 3 cats, a dog, and a cold, so you can imagine what my house looks like this week!
In the first picture, all you see is my kitten, Tigger, cuddling with a stuffed bunny rabbit (who, by the way, smells like chocolate!). Say it with me now, “awwwwww!” Now in the second image, Tigger is still cuddling with the bunny. However, the “aww” factor is not there. What your eye is drawn to is most likely my unmade bed, the pile of laundry in the background, the blinds that need repairing (I swear I asked him to replace those!), and maybe you even noticed my 70’s-fabulous avocado, orange, and gold shag rug in the lower left corner (yes, go ahead, gag, I sure am!).
You want to use perspective not just to get rid of stuff you don’t want in the scene though, but to enhance your picture. Sometimes, standing back IS just what you need to do, and with some practice, you’ll know when to stand back and when not to.
Do you see how entirely different these two pictures are, and how they convey two totally different stories? *On a side note, the first image is very blurry, this is why you need to compose the image when you TAKE it, even with a great camera, because extreme cropping on the computer will almost always lead to loss of quality!*
This might all seem like a lot of work, but really, once you get used to thinking about perspective, and paying close attention to composing your image, you will start to do it without much thought at all!