fake photography
Quite a few years ago, my good friend Witold shared a surreal little photo with me that he had taken from one of the upper floors of the Woolworth building of the World Trade Center and some other surrounding building. It was noteworthy because is looked so fake - almost like a miniature model of the architecture. It made it into his 600×250 photos collection so you can judge for yourself. Spectacular photo, ans if I am not mistaken, taken with simplest of fixed lens point and shoot cameras, the Leica Minilux 35mm.
This afternoon, I followed a simple link provided by Andy Baio a whole new world of appreciation has been opened up to me. I thought I would share.
Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri takes aerial shots of famous cities and architecture that look like miniature models and train sets. It is absolutely amazing, and in many of the examples, a little hard to believe. You really have to see it. He uses a “tilt-shift lens” – a method, he says, that ‘allows me to choose what I really like in focus: like in a written page, we don’t read [it as an] image but one line at a time.’ I don’t really understand, but he goes on to say it is ‘the city as an avatar of itself.” Stunning, stunning work. BLDGBlog has a nice description and some examples, but the collection on Metropolis Magazine is even better. Some more examples can be found on Art Net here.
I also read all the comments from readers of these other stories and found mention of work from another photographer who achieves a similar effect, though I have no idea if the technique is the same. Tom Merilion took incredible picture of Birmingham, England that have to be considered along with Barbieri’s work. This stuff is so much fun to look at.
Some people have wondered how this technique would work with portraits of real people. I would love to see photos like that. If know what the hell these guys were doing, I would try it myself. For now, we have the very beautiful work of Loretta Lux to keep us occupied. It’s not quite the same effect, but its chilling nonetheless. Some of her work is on display here in NY at the Guggenheim, and I will be sure to go soon to check it out. This collection on her website is incredible.
UPDATE 1/29/06: There is a fantastic Japanese photoblog by “the bitter girls” that looks like it is dedicated to tilt-shift photography. I can’t read or understand a thing, but the images are amazing. Like this one…
Also found this great article one how tilt-shift lenses work. I sort of understand it. But not really.
It seems that Canon makes some relatively inexpensive tilt-shift lenses that are even available on Amazon. I am sure there is a cheaper place, but I haven’t even looked around anywhere else yet. Most of the photos by the bitter*girls seem to be taken with either the Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8 or the TS-E 45mm f/2.8. Amazon also has a 24mm. I may save up for the 45mm. I have to do a little more research.
[followed a long trail starting with Waxy.]
i looove loretta lux.
well, it’s not fake photography, it’s just moving the plane of focus (which is on virtually all cameras parallel to the film/CCD), well, somewhere else. this can be done with view-cameras fairly easy, and is well documented (google the word “scheimpflug”). ebony camera has a nice PDF explaining the whole thing, as well as selling really really nice view cameras
what i like about this, is the fact that it looks like macro-photography (very shallow depth of focus), even if it is the exact opposite of it. great stuff.
I think that’s what actually sells the illusion that it’s a shot of a miniature. You’d shoot something like that in macro with a shallow depth of focus. The first shot, I think, is sold because it looks like you’re at eye level with the buildings and the darkness of the shot flattens it a little. It’s definitely a very cool effect.
You don’t need a 4×5 large format camera to get those reults:
http://www.lensbabies.com/pages/using.php
a 35mm lens that can give you…well…sorta similar results. My photographer friend just bought one, and it’s freakin’ awesome.
~nj?
true, exactly the same idea, only cheaper and easier to use.
[…] This is my first attempt at a fake tilt-shift effect using Photoshop. I followed this really simple tutorial. I know there are some better, more advanced versions out there, but this one seemed to do the trick. […]
[…] Thom Yorke’s The Eraser is fantastic, as you know, and Harrowdown Hill is one of the best tracks. The relatively new video for that song is stunning and brilliant, and includes the first I’ve seen use of the tilt-shift photography technique in film. I’ve written about tilt-shift and fake tilt-shift many times before. It could be done in post production, or could actually be footage filmed with a shifting lens setup. Either way, the effect it has is chilling when cities and crowds look like toys. This YouTube version of the video is a bit low quality, but you’ll get the idea. […]