Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today I wanted to talk to you about an easy way to change the look of your photos. I’m shooting my brother’s headshots. He’s a realtor here in Los Angeles, so we headed out to MacArthur Park to get some nice images with the L.A. skyline in the background. We didn’t have time to run from place to place, but with the technique I’ll show you today, we were still able to get variety in our background, even though we were in the same spot the whole time. Let’s take a look at how you can change your fee to change your perspective.
Cropping vs. Changing Perspective
I needed to decide how large I wanted the skyline to be in Kelly’s photos. If I stand in the same spot but zoom in with my lens, the background and the foreground become bigger, but stay the same in relation to each other. If I move in or out with my feet, but keep my lens the same, the perspective of the background will change in relation to the foreground of the image.
Zoom In to Crop In
I set up my camera with a zoom lens- the Tamron 70-200mm. From there I’ll keep the camera in the same place and zoom in for each shot.
Although they will both get progressively bigger each time I zoom in, the ratio of the foreground to the background will not change.
You cannot change the relationship of the foreground to the background only by zooming in.
Move Your Feet to Change Your Perspective
Physically moving your camera is necessary to keep your subject the same size in your photos while changing the background in relation to it. You have to keep your subject the same size within the frame for this principle to work. If you move away from your subject but zoom in, your background will become bigger. Here, I kept Kelly the same size in the frame as I moved toward him and zoomed out, so my background became smaller.
So moving your camera will change the ratio of your foreground to background when you keep your subject the same size within your frame.
This principle comes in handy when you have something in the frame you don’t want to see. Back up and go to a longer focal length. If you want to see more of the background and make it seem farther away, move forward and go with a wider lens. And if you need to, you can always move your subject as well.
So there’s a look at how to change the perspective of your foreground to your background by changing your camera’s position and zooming in or out with your lens. Remember, change your feet, change your perspective. Zoom in, simply crop. Keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’.
-Jay P.