You can tell Stories through Photography and influence what people think in many ways. The most powerful of them being Perspective.
There are various ways in which you might change Perspective to induce certain feelings in the viewer. Like being small, or big. Or anything in between.
Going down low, or into the Perspective of a child, everything seems to be bigger than it is. A single truck can become very dominating, a small building might seem to be huge, just like it is for a small kid.
Another Perspective would be that of an adult, seeing the world from a bit higher up, but still in a normal way. This would be the best way to just showcase an area as one would see it if they were there.
Shooting from above is always a great way to show what is not usually seen. For example, most people just take the train but never really look at the symmetry of the track. Shooting down just a bit is an awesome method to exhibit a smaller area, like a street or a place.
Ascending towers and other tall structures or mountains is a great way to give people an overview of where you are and what is going on there. I absolutely love it to climb towers and shoot from above, even though I am deathly afraid of heights and sometimes have to take a deep breath so that I can actually go back down! But it is usually worth every minute of it.
An intermediate step would be to climb a very tall tower that stands above all the other buildings in its area, like the CN Tower in Toronto or Berlins’ Fernsehturm. Going up those buildings gives your Photos a whole new, breathtaking Perspective.
My favourite way to get an establishing shot of a place, or just an overlook for my self though is to get into a Helicopter, a little Cessna or similar Aircraft and shoot the place from way up high. As long as I can not fall out of it or loose my gear, it is okay. I am kinda immune to my fear of heights when I sit in a little somewhat sketchy plane with a stranger I have never met before just because he has a pilots license. For me, shooting from the sky is one of the best ways of them all. I just have not been able to do so in a while. Wherever sight-seeing flights were offered when I was there, they were just to darn expensive for me. Luckily I have re-discovered Wingly recently though, and there are short flights offered starting around 60-70 Euros. Bargain!
The last thing I am going to mention here to shoot things dead on. Animals just look more lively when they are not simply shot from above, but at their eye-level. This little old Citroen delivery van looks way more menacing shot from the front and pretty much filling the frame. But maybe that also comes from its square, unyielding silhouette.
My favourite Perspective is to Shoot from either eye-level, at eye-level or from way up high. I just like to show my environs as they are or extremely tiny. What do you think?
Robin Ho Fotos 