a1 Photo Tips

Ever given a thought to how a picture changes just by you lowering or jacking up the camera position? Such a simple change can have a huge impact on the result. If you give some creative thought to the angle you choose when snapping your picture, the result will be so much more fun to watch!

This works in a couple of ways, but let us consider the effect on the main subject of interest here. (It is also likely to affect the appearance of the background in major ways, more on that in another photo tip.)

Here I made a picture of a pretty but poisonous plant: the red baneberry (Actaea rubra). First I somewhat lazily held the camera at waist level, and since the plant is much shorter than me it was then shown from above.

Then I looked at the result and felt it was a bit dull, although it does show the fruit and the leaves OK, and the background is neutral. However, the image feels kind of flat - almost like a pattern on a wallpaper.

Next, I lowered the camera to almost ground level - only some cm. (a few inches) above the ground, and made the second image. Here, I like the result much more! The three-dimensional shape of the fruit cluster now stands out, and you feel a much stronger presence.

Everything else is the same. It is the same fruit cluster, similar distance, and the same light conditions. But by lowering the camera I changed the viewing angle radically.

So - get out of your comfort zone! Test unexpected camera positions, even if it means having to kneel on the ground, or climb up on something to get a birds-eye view.

The famous landscape photographer Ansel Adams took many of his best pictures from - the roof of his car! He had a special camera platform up there, and from that vantage point he found a more interesting angle on his landscapes than from the ground.

I must admit that it sure helps if you, like me, happen to have a digicam with an electronic viewfinder which can be rotated in almost any direction - like my old Canon Powershot G2. This type of viewfinder is not very common nowadays, I am not even sure if the latest Canon Powershot camera models still come with this very handy feature.

Now another example: how the appearance of objects is changed by snapping the picture from different angles.

This ornate urn is on display in a public garden in my home town. The first picture I made of that urn was taken from my most convenient level - eye level. You can see how the urn is shown as narrowing toward the top, when in fact that part is perfectly cylindrical. Also the beautiful flower arrangement in the mouth of the urn doesn’t show so well.

By raising the camera high above my head, I was able to get it at about the same height as the urn. Therefore its shape is now more realistically rendered, and the flowers show better. (There is only a minute or so between these two exposures, but in that short time span the light changed; it became more overcast and therefore the relief decorations and the Satyr’s head show less well since the light is now softer.)

I hope these modest examples of changing the camera level will get your creative juices flowing!