forced perspective

Forced perspective is an optical illusion created through photography in order to make an object appear larger, smaller, nearer or further away. In order to achieve the forced perspective effect both the background and foreground must be in focus so that the illusion is not shattered. Examples of forced perspective include photographs in which people appear to have the sun between their fingers and photographs in which people appear to be pushing against the leaning tower of Pisa. I attempted to recreate this illusion with my own photographs. Here are the photographs which I took to show forced perspective.

Here is a closer look at some of my favourite forced perspective photographs from this shoot.

This is one of the first photographs which I took when trying out the forced perspective technique. This is a photograph of what appears to be an extremely large Starbucks cup with Rebecca reaching up to it as if she is trying to reach the top of it but can't. As we know, the Starbucks cup is only a view inches tall and it is in no way taller than a person however as the cup is a lot closer to the camera than Rebecca is, it appears to be much larger that it really is. This is not one of the best photographs I have taken as the majority of the photograph is out of focus. This was inevitable though as in order to get both the foreground and background in focus I needed a much smaller aperture than i had available to use. If I had a smaller aperture to use, more of this photograph would have been in focus meaning the photograph would have looked a lot better than it currently does.

this is another example of forced perspective which i took during this shoot. This photograph was taken within Waterstones book store and shows a large toy rabbit overlooking the bookshelf. In reality the toy rabbit was only around 6 inches in height but as I held it much closer to the camera, it appears much bigger than it is. Again this photograph is not perfect as with the aperture range which I had available it was impossible to get both the rabbit and the bookshelf perfectly in focus. In addition to this, the lighting within the book store was a problem as the light being let in from the skylights is reflecting off of the bookshelf making it too bright. If I was able to find a way around both f these problems then this photograph would be greatly improved. 

This photograph was taken with the same idea in mind as the last. This photograph shows a toy caterpillar being held as if it is climbing up the book shelf. The toy caterpillar is a lot smaller than the bookshelf however as it is being held closer to the camera, it looks a lot larger, dwarfing the bookshelf. Again, like with the last photograph, as it was taken within the same location, the lighting is once again proving to be a problem as it makes the bookshelf appear too bright and the sign at the top of the bookshelf is not readable. If this problem was not apparent, this photograph would be a lot better than it currently is. 

This is one of the final photographs which I took from this shoot and it is also my favourite photograph. This photograph shows a water fountain coming out of the top of a Lucozade bottle. This photograph show forced perspective as the water fountain appears much smaller than it in in real life as it appears to fit inside the Lucozade bottle which we know is not the case in real life. This photograph works well as the water fountain was not too far away from the camera meaning that i was able ot work with the aperture range which i had available meaning i was able to get the bottle and the water fountain in focus making the forced perspective illusion look more realistic than some of the other photographs which I took. In addition to this, I like this photograph because the lighting worked really well for this shot. The lighting for this photograph is provided solely by natural lighting and as it was taken on a sunny day, there is a lot of light available and the blue from the sky is reflected in the water meaning that the majority of the background for this photograph is blue which provides a nice contrast with the orange of the Lucozade bottle making the photograph very eye catching. overall I think that this is the photograph which worked best out of all of the photographs i took during this shoot.