Using Perspective for Better Images

One of the things that new photographers struggle with is shooting everything at eye level. You walk around taking in the scenery and see something that catches your eye and just point your camera at it and shoot. The problem is this can make your photos bland and boring and everything starts looking the same.

In order to make things for interesting and visually appealing, you need to move around and change things up a bit. Shooting a field of flowers with a windmill in the background? Use a wide angle lens and get down low to the ground, that way the flowers in your foreground are more prominent.

If you are shooting a redwood, get down low and shoot looking up into the tree, it will exaggerate it’s massive size even more and create a more interesting view. Or if it’s a small object like this antique Singer sewing machine, shoot standing over it and shoot downwards.

I shot this sewing machine by getting close and then looking down into it.

You can also shoot buildings or cars at an angle to get more of a unique look to them. I sometimes shoot my buildings for my project at the corner of the building just to make the scene more interesting and if the sky happens to also be really dramatic naturally it can make your image stronger.

For this Impala SS, I got down low and shot it at an angle from the front.

Great photographers never just stand and shoot everything at eye or tripod level, they move around and mix things up a bit to make for more appealing images. One of my favorites, Chase Jarvis, shoots a lot of sports, especially cyclists, snowboarders, rock climbers and he is always thinking outside the box on the view, angle and perspective he wants to get for his images.

I watched one of his shoots he was doing for Mountain Dew, and he was shooting a guy riding on a trail out in the woods and to get the perspective he wanted, Chase and his team made a dirt mount for the rider to go over and get airborne and then Chase actually laid on the ground on his back and shot up into the rider and bicycle to get a better angle to make the kind of strong image he was looking for. Now in a case like this, he could have potentially gotten hurt if something went wrong, but Chase doesn’t worry about stuff like that, he worries about getting the angle and view he is looking for to make that strong, visually appealing image and the folks at Mountain Dew loved that image and plastered it all over billboards, magazines, etc.

For this steam powered saw, I knelt down and got in close to make the blade bigger.

So keep these tips in mind next time you are out shooting. Change things up, make your images more compelling and more interesting. You will get much more dramatic and beautiful shots, and won’t have your professors nagging you to move around and make more visual variety!

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