Project 0: Becoming Friends with Your Camera
Exploring the subtle relationship between perspective, focal length/zoom, and the center of projection
Photos taken during my trip in LA (beautiful but too hot 🫠)
Part 1: Selfie: The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way
14mm
24mm
35mm
48mm
120mm
Some thoughts
We can see that in the leftmost photo, my nose appears very large and my face is distorted. As the photographer (thanks to her!) steps back with a longer focal length to keep my face approximately the same size, my face look increasingly natural. From what I’ve learned about photography (as a hobby), this is because stepping back increases the distance between the subject and the camera’s center of projection, which changes the perspective. While the actual distances between facial features remain the same (obviously my face doesn’t change), their relative distances to the camera do. When the camera is very close, these relative distance differences are proportionally large, so the effect of “closer looks bigger, farther looks smaller” is exaggerated, causing facial distortion. As the photographer moves farther away, this relative difference becomes smaller, the perspective distortion is reduced, and the facial proportions appear more natural.
Part 2: Architectural Perspective Compression
145mm (far with zoom in)
24mm (close without zoom)
Some thoughts
For the same reason as in Part 1, when photographing from farther away and zooming in (left), the perspective effect of “closer looks bigger, farther looks smaller” is reduced, so the depth of the street looks compressed. In contrast, when I move closer without zooming, the perspective effect is stronger, and the street appears to stretch out much deeper into the distance.
Part 3: The Dolly Zoom
Dolly Zoom of "an alien trapped inside soap"
Some thoughts
By changing the perspective while keeping the subject roughly the same size, we can get the classic “dolly zoom” effect, where the background seems to "rush toward us". I shot this sequence at a Lush Cosmetics in the Century City of LA. They have tons of beautiful, fun, and wonderfully scented soaps, and the object here is suggested by their staff: “an alien trapped inside soap.” (Please excuse the slight tilt in the last few frames. Since there were other display tables and a wall right behind them, I had to lean back against the edge of a table and half-recline to get the shots!)
Selected Photos of LA Trip (except the cat)
