Think Small

When I was a kid I used to love to press play and FFW at the same time. This instantly made the music more fun. Suddenly it would sound as if the chipmunks were singing my favorite songs. I could get the same effect when I would take a deep drag off of a helium balloon and then say something to my friends. This always got instant laughs. We loved the idea of something being smaller. Something being so tiny that it even sounded different. Most of the the things that we find joy in, in life, come in bite size pieces, not huge packages. I think this is something that we had a better grasp on when we were kids. We knew, back then, that if we could hold something in our hand or find a way to look down it, all at once, we could instantly understand it. This week I have been studying a photo process that creates this same effect, visually.

Tilt/ shift photography is a technique used to make the subjects in images appear to be model size. Most of tilt/ shift photography is accomplished with spacial lenses shooting from aerial positions. The process is to take an image that would normally be in full focus and blur parts of the image to create depth of field. This draws attention to the subject in the image, as if you were looking at it through a magnifying glass. The ironic thing about tilt/ shift photography is, in shrinking down the subject and drawing your attention to a single object within these vast spaces, you actually come away with a better understanding of what you have just seen. Below are some great examples of this technique that I have found on the web. Remember the images and video are completely real, they are not models.

Although, true tilt/ shift photography takes a skilled eye and special equipment, there are a few ways to have a little fun even if you are not a pro. Tiltshiftmaker.com is a web application that allows you to create some tilt/ shift images with your own photos. I tried this site out and it works! Your results will depend on how well your image is suited for this filter. Follow the instructions on the site and you should have pretty good luck. Once you develop an eye for this type of image you might try to create the same effect in a photo studio program like Photoshop™. Below are some of the photos that I created at tiltshiftmaker.com and with Photoshop™. Keep in mind I did not originally compose any of these photos below for this effect. Enjoy!