President’s Report

October Fun, friendship and Learning

OFFICE BEARERS President: Trevor Faulkes Events Organiser: All members Vice President: Gail Douglas Secretary: John Van Rijswijk Shutterbug: Gail Douglas Treasurer: John Van Rijswijk Publicity: Narelle Howard

Buy, Swap, Sell

Presidents monthly report Hi Everyone, The AGM was held last meeting and the following positions were filled: President.........Trevor Faulkes Vice President.............Gail Douglas Secretary/Treasurer.............John Van Rijswijk Public Officer.......John Van Rijswijk Publicity Officer.....................Narelle Howard Supper Coordinator..........Moya Van Rijswijk Shutterbug Co-ordinator.......Gail Douglas It was decided membership fees to remain the same single .....$30 Family.....$40 pensioner....$25 Junior.......$25 In any other business it decided that more effort to be put into a teaching/learning program at future meetings. The CFX competition has closed and I believe the closing number of entries is in the region of 400. In view of the current climate I am very pleased with the total and look forward to the judges decision as to the winners. I look forward to seeing everyone at the opening night and in the mean time as previously stay safe and healthy. Regards— Trevor

Next meeting is the 11th November 2020 at 4.30pm. Subject/challenge is— Forced Perspectives As we are still getting the photos for the topic ready, I have decided to leave the topic as it is until the end of this month. I’ll leave the body of the Shutterbug pretty much as is just with some more ideas/photos on the last pages. Just a note. Can members please bring a prize for the club night raffle (under $10.00). ______________________________________________

UPCOMING EVENTS No outings until further notice. CFE hanging 21st November 2020. 1.00pm

A GRADE – Subject— 1st – Leonie Martin 2nd – Moya van Rijswijk HC – Dale Hartnell C— Dale Hartnell C – Dale Hartnell C— Gail Douglas A GRADE – Open 1st - Gail Douglas 2nd - Gail Douglas C – Gail Douglas JUNIORS— Open 1st - 2nd - HC - C - C - JUNIORS – Subject— 1st – 2nd – HC - C – LARGE PRINT 1st - Gail Douglas 2nd - Please note the change in the club competition: B Grade will be suspended. A Grade only subject/challenge and open class. Meta Data to written on back of photo. Junior and large print remain unchanged. Subject/challenge to be announced at previous meeting and included in Shutterbug. All photos must be taken within one month of comp. Photos must be sole work of entrant. Member must present photo in person or via a sibling/Family member only. Monthly comp to be judged/critiqued by guest presenter. Print sizes and presentation to remain unchanged.

Results —Camera Club Comp

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas

Forced perspective is a type of optical illusion. Objects appear to be a different size or distance due to the angle they have been shot from. You can turn tiny objects into giants, or shrink buildings. A classic example of forced perspective is the tourist shot of a person ‘holding’ the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Forced perspective photography is fun and straightforward. You can try this technique anywhere you go, get creative!

Follow our great tips to start making forced perspective photos.

Check Out Forced Perspective Poses for Inspiration

If you don’t know where to start, you can find creative photography ideas online.

Search “forced perspective” on Google, Instagram or even Pinterest. You’ll find hundreds of examples to inspire you.

Popular images include people who appear like gnomes or giants. Even small toys can appear large and realistic.

Take your time to look at different pictures, and pick out which ones you like. You can use them as a reference for your project.

Plan Each Scene Beforehand for a Convincing Illusion

Every visual element in your frame has to work together. Harmony is the key to a convincing forced perspective shot. So before you go out and take pictures, figure out how to execute every single scene you want to create.

Look at some of your reference photos and scout for the best places to do them. If one of your forced perspective ideas involves a bench, choose a location with plenty of them, like a park.

You should also list down the necessary props you need for your project. If you can’t find the right area or object, consider tweaking your concept.

And you need to think of how to set up your photos. You’ll need to know where to place your camera, and where to position your subjects.

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas (Cont)

Take Test Shots

After you plan the shoot, you have to take some test shots before doing the real shoot. Take some test shots at home to help you visualize your idea better. See if you might need some more props or what angles work best so that when you are at your location, you are ready to go.

Try a Zoom Lens for Perspective Distortion

You can use just about any lens to create perspective distortion. Your most ideal option would be a zoom lens.

You’re playing around with perspective or false perspective, so expect to adjust your framing and composition a lot.

A zoom lens allows you to re-frame your shot without having to move closer or farther away, unlike a prime lens. When using a zoom lens, try not to go lower than 35mm when possible.

The perspective distortion in the wide-angle range could diminish the outcome of the illusion.

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas (Cont)

Use Small Aperture for the Best Results

Forced perspective photography involves two points of interest. These work together to create an illusion.

There would be one subject in the foreground, and another in the background. You’ll need to make sure everything is sharp from the front to the back.

Set your camera to Aperture Priority and choose a small aperture between f/8 to f/16 to keep a deep depth of field.

Try not to go any higher, or you’ll encounter diffraction. This issue arises when the opening is too small (such as f/22 or smaller), and light struggles to get in.

The disturbance in the light waves causes your image to lose detail. Meanwhile, there are also situations when you’ll need to blur the background. If so, select your aperture between f/1.2 to f/2.8, instead.

The narrow depth of field will guarantee you a beautiful, soft bokeh. Since you’re using Aperture Priority, you don’t have to worry about shutter speed. The camera chooses it for you.

Check your settings every once in a while, especially when you’re starting to lose available light.

When it’s getting dark, the shutter speed will dip down to less than 1/60th per second. Your image might end up out of fo-cus due to motion blur.

To counter this problem, you can either open your aperture more or bump up your ISO.

Work With a Partner to Get the Perfect Shot

It can be quite challenging to do forced perspective photography by yourself. In most cases, you’ll need at least one partici-pant to execute an optical illusion.

Apart from taking photos, it’s also your responsibility to tell them how to pose and where to go.

Before you shoot, discuss your concept with your partner beforehand. Describe what the final image is going to look like, and show them what they’ll need to do to make it work.

Feel free to show reference photos to give them a general idea about what you want to create.

Since your partner can’t see what you see on the screen, you’ll need to communicate with each other a lot. Ask them to move forward, back, or sideways until they’re in the right spot.

You should also reposition your camera until everything is aligned. This process requires a lot of trial and error, so patience is vital.

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas (Cont)

Play with Abstract Concepts

The cool thing with forced perspectives is that you are basically creating an image which can’t exist in real life. This makes the perfect opportunity to play with abstract concepts with a deeper meaning. You can show someone kicking the sunset, or running after time. Play with intangible concepts such as fear, time, love, hope, etc. For example, you can show something fearful like a skeleton with a human. Or you can show a weighing scale towering over a tiny human, representing the fear of gaining weight.

Incorporate Light

Light can be used as a cool prop in your image. One way to do this is to create a bokeh. Use the circles that bokeh light cre-ates as objects in your photo, like in the image below.

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas (Cont)

Composition Is Key to Creating the Illusion

Perspective is important in composition. It can create a realistic 3D scene with the 2D image that a camera produces.

The composition is the most crucial part of forced perspective shots. You need to place your subject in the exact spot, or else people will notice the illusion right away.

If you want something to look bigger than it is, put it in the foreground. To make it smaller, put it in the background.

Then find the sweet spot where your partner appears to interact with your prop. Feel free to zoom in and out, or move the camera if necessary.

Your goal is to line up the background and the foreground to make them look like they’re parallel to each other.

Also, try some basic composition rules to keep your shots balanced. Turn on your camera’s grid line and use the rule of thirds to frame your image.

Align your subject to one of the sections where the lines intersect. With this method, you will have a well-composed frame.

Use Angles to Make Your Image Look 3D

With forced perspective in photography, you’ll need to think beyond eye-level.

You will either need to lay low on the ground or to take pictures from above.

First, consider what type of shot you need to create. Do you want the foreground and the background to merge?

Then shoot at the ground level. If you’re going to add depth perception to your image, then take photos from a higher van-tage point. Try to tilt-shift your camera until you get the perspective you want to achieve.

Forced Perspective Photography Ideas (Cont)

Use a Tilt-Shift Lens

A tilt-shift lens is a lens that tilts the optics that hit your image sensor. Basically, when used it can make everything look miniature. For example, in the image below, a tilt-shift lens is used to make this suburban area look like a miniature model.

Create a Flat Image

If you want your image to look two dimensional, then make your subject and prop look as flat as possible. Make sure you line up everything

In other words, don’t position it sideways because it gives away its real height and depth.

Interact With the Environment to Create Depth

The most common backgrounds for forced perspective include flat surfaces, streets, and buildings.

In most cases, people use each location for specific purposes. Forced perspective photographers often look for flat surfaces for big/small illusions. Or they use streets and sidewalks to create an illusion of depth or height.

As for buildings (e.g., the Leaning Tower of Pisa), pretending to hold or carry them is a common trick. You can also think of other ways of interacting with your surroundings. And you can apply these to almost every architectural feature you find.

You can use anything from boardwalks to corridors to trick people’s senses or point of view.

How to Take Forced Perspective Photos?

Shoot with a High Zoom

It is better to work with a high zoom. The higher the magnification of the zoom is, the wider the area of focus at the wide-angle and telephoto ends, and the more versatile the use can be.

Firstly, you’re going to find a large enough space so you have the most options of where to position your subjects. Next, you’ll want to position your subjects along the horizontal line which runs from the camera outwards. And now for the gear, a camera with the wide-angle lens is best, even though most people are creating forced perspectives with just their phones.

You’ll want to use a wide-angle lens that’ll give you the most options for creating different sizes of subjects. The lens we use has a focal length of 11 millimetres to 16 millimetres, but any focal length under 35 millimetres is considered wide-angle.

Use Higher Aperture

Aperture is the most important factor in determining the depth of field. When focusing your shot, aim for somewhere in between your subjects. They should all be in focus when you zoom in to check on them. Depending on how you shoot the photo serves to enlarge or reduce the size of the elements. From a closer point of view and focus, you’ll get up to the ele-ments to appear larger.

The wide focus will make everything seem much closer together, so make sure you use the highest aperture you have. Cranked up your f-stop, but by using your highest aperture you’re going to lose a lot of light. So you’re going to want to make sure you have really good lighting conditions to make this trick work. The narrow depth of field will guarantee you a beautiful, soft im-age.

In the photo above, the photographer chose a very good angle and used a small aperture, so it creates a nice forced perspective from a distance. How-ever, it would have been better if the photographer had moved the camera a little further away from the subject.

Focus

To create beautiful forced perspective shots, make sure you also illuminate your subject adequately. It may seem very easy, but if you focus too much on getting that bokeh in the back, you might forget that your primary focus point also has to be lit up. If the objects in the photo have different lighting or are blurred, it will make the effect look fake. Try focusing in on both the objects to create the perfect forced perspective. This will definitely fool everyone! If you want to blur the image to enhance this effect, we recommend trying out the tilt-shift effect to create a miniature effect in the background. You can use Tilt-Shift at Fotor.com just as we did in the photo below.

How to Take Forced Perspective Photos?

As mentioned above, the key is creativity and imagination. It is achieved by mixing the background of the photo with the foreground, making it appear that the two objects have the same importance. Of course, these two objects have different sizes and it is precisely this that tricks our eyes into creating an optical illusion. It is all about composition, zoom, and per-spective. To get the coolest and impressive photo effects, the following steps must be followed!

Make Your Plan

In order to harmonize each visual element, you need to think about what the scene you want before you take the photo, as well as figure out how you are going to execute each shot. So, you need to make adequate preparation to carry out a forced perspective photo.

Before the shooting, you can Google the photos you want to take or the style you want to imitate, then observe if there are suitable venues around you. You should look for an open field and make sure it is large enough to allow you to place your camera and that no one will suddenly appear in your image.

You should also list the necessary props you need for your project, including sunlight as well, and plenty of natural light is an important guarantee for the subject to articulate naturally. If you can’t find the right area or object, consider adjusting your concept.

Prepare for the Poses

In many films and television productions, it is not necessary to have a very funny pose when taking a photo with forced per-spective, but rather to have the right distance and angle to make the subject look harmonious in the same frame.

But if you want to take an interesting photo to post on social media, you need to conceive of an interesting pose. If you’re not sure what pose to use, at least be clear on the props you’re using and go to Google, YouTube or Pinterest to search for them. Take some time to look at the different images and pick out the ones you like. You can use them as a reference for your project.

Practice different Composition

The composition is the most critical part of forced perspective photography. Before you shoot your photo you have to have thought about the composi-tion you want to achieve. You should place people and objects in the right location and move the camera slowly to connect the two objects to-gether. It is better to not use a tripod so you’ll have more room for manoeu-vring. The subject that you want to appear larger should be close to the camera. And the one that you want to appear smaller should be farther away.

Also, try some basic composition rules to keep your shots balanced. Turn on your camera’s grid line and use the rule of thirds to frame your image.

The most basic of all photography rules, the rule of thirds, is all about dividing your shot into nine equal sections by a set of vertical and horizontal lines. With the imaginary frame in place, you should place the most important element in your shot on one of the lines or where the lines meet.