High angle AND distorted perspective shots

[majid]

This is somewhat related to an earlier thread, but here goes. I have been seeing

increasing usage of highly plunging portraits on commercial websites. The portrait

shows the entire body, with some distortion, and I guess is is popular because it

shows an entire body in little more space than required for a head shot. Then again,

maybe it's just that commercial and advertising photography has its fads like

everything else.<p>

An example taken from a Photodisc stock photos CD follows, (courtesy of

photographer Monica Lau's website):<p>

<center><img src="http://home.earthlink.net/~monicalau/images/

greenjacket.jpg"></center><p>

I am curious how these portraits are shot. Ultra-wide angle and/or fisheye lenses?

Digital manipulation? Models who are also yoga adepts?

[elliot]

Like you said, it might be a fad or somethign along the lines. Its trendy. I guess with shots like you are talking about, they are trying to say "Look how EXTREME we are! We are hip and fresh and trendy!" Anyhow, the shot you posted doesnt look really all that distorted. I've seen much more dramatic shots. You could probably get something like that using maybe somewhere between a 28 and 20mm lens. Fisheye lenses would make everything curvy looking with a lot of barrel distortion. I imagine it shouldnt be hard to make an image like this with bunches more distortion. Just use the widest non-fisheye lenses you can get your hands on.

[majid]

Yes, I've seen far more caricatural examples (here is a sample from Encyclopaedia

Britannica 2003 DVD, which prompted this whole thread). As for the widest angle lens

I have, does a Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 Ultra-wide Heliar qualify ? :-) That said, it is a

rectilinear lens, and it won't give the curved distortion in the bodies. That's why I was

guessing a fisheye, with the head off-center.<div></div>

[majid]

Another example. The reason I used the lday in green as an example is that I find her

particularly adorable, of course...<div></div>

[h._p.]

I rather think this is a case of "what goes around, comes around". There were a number of British photographers who used this technique in the late 'sixties and early 'seventies, often because they'd got their hands on a Hasselblad SWC or the Nikkor 21mm.

[jbq]

The very first photo is most probably not shot with a fish-eye (the lines of the laptop are still lines).

[ber]

Hi,<br>

I did some shot of this kind. I did it because it was looking funny ! :-) Isn't it ?<br>

<br>

Here, for example, with a short DOF (it's not for nothing that I bought a 85mm f1.4 ;-), a picture from my <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=287857" target="_blank">"Mélanie" folder</A>:<br>

<IMG SRC="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1344995&size=md"><br><br>

I take one other looking along the body of a nude girl from the feet to the head with a short DOF on the feet. Unfortunaltly I have no print handy wich I could scan. (Will first have to finish the setup of my new lab).<br>

<br>

Regards,<br>

Marc<br>

[struan_gray]

It is possible these shots were taken on a large format camera.

You would still need a wide angle lens, but a LF camera would

let you use rear movements to emphasise the near-far relation,

and front movements to put everything into focus.

[edward_kang]

<center>

<img src=http://www.nd.edu/~ekang/forum/rich20mm1.jpg>

20mm/2.8

</center>

 

You can get a wicked amount of depth of field with a 20mm at f/8, even more at f/11, and when you hit f/22, it's all over (and so is your sharpness :P)

[elliot]

Fazal - How do you like that 12mm? I've never actually even seen one of those in person. 12mm is some massive rectalinear coverage! You should post some shots from it on here somewhere.

[majid]

I just started learning how to use it. It has huge depth of field, but you have to be

very careful with composition and leveling the camera. Objects close by at the

periphery of the frame will be severely elongated.<p>

I posted a few crude scans on my <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=323427">portfolio</a>.

Note that straight lines remain perfectly straight, so a lens like this could not be used

to produce the curved distortion in the 2nd and 3rd shot.<p>

I don't think this lens is very useful for people photography, though, except for large

group portraits, but the film resolution is going to be the limiting factor.

[sandy.]

Fazal, well, it dosen't look too hot if you shoot from the bottom up...;-)))<div></div>

[twmeyer]

I think the editorial factor is a more photographically sophisticated audience. The demographic of their intended audience is visually savvy. Look at the ages and accesories of the people in those examples. They are all familiar with photographic seeing and are used to the way lenses distort an image. From surveillance footage on the "Cops" tv show to MTV music videos to concealed camera reality television and web cams, wide angle is "hip and cool"... You don't see many images like this in the AARP magazine (<b>A</b>merican <b>A</b>ssociation of <b>R</b>etired <b>P</b>eople)... t

[elliot]

ha! it would be hilarious if you saw a lot of pictures like this in the AARP magazine!

[joe_garrick]

It's trendy. Next year this will look out of date because everyone will be shooting up instead of down, or using low key lighting instead of high key, or using earth tones instead of bright pastels, or using some other gimmick.

 

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs or arguing semantics here, but I also wouldn't call most of the examples portraits. They're commercial photos - the people in them are props used to sell something. Portraits are about revealing the personality of the subject. These are decent photos, but I don't think they're intended as portraits.

[joe_garrick]

Just to clarify, I meant that the original three examples posted by Fazal Majid aren't portraits. The others that follow aren't obviously intended to sell something, and so by my definition could be considered as portraits.

[twmeyer]

They are commercial portraits, that is, a portrait that is fabricated specifically to show the kind of person that does or should use these products. <p>That these portraits are made and used as advertising, doesn't require re-catagorizing them as product shots, which are actually still life photographs that are used for advertising, just like photographs of a golf course at dawn are landscape photographs used to sell real estate or club memberships. <p>There are many types of portraits; editorial, celebrity, commercial that all show specific components of the subjects personality that are useful to the intent of the artist, or whoever subsidizes or rents the image. <p>The degree of artificiality the subject employs may certainly take all honesty from the image, but this can be a difficult thing to detect, especially with professionals who are hired to look like someone that they may not actually be. Actor's head shots and portfolio pieces are a good example of portraits that are filled with artifice, yet reveal something quite valid and specific about an individual... t<div></div>

[brian_diaz]

<i>They are commercial portraits, that is, a portrait that is fabricated specifically to show the kind of person that does or should use these products.</i><p>

Does this mean that people with giant heads and tiny feet do or should use laptops? And where can I get one of those headbands that makes me look so psychotic? I should be wearing one of those...