Look like toys

[MartinHSchei]

I have seen some photographs made on 4x5"(i think....) where the people and buildings look like toy people and toy buildings.
Is this an "effect" achiveable with 4x5"?
And maybe with a telephoto lens, Nikon 360mm?

- Martin Hellen Schei

[Ralph Barker]

It's all a matter of perspective and camera position, I'd think. The effect is probably easier to achieve with a wider lens than with a long one.

[tim atherton]

plus, sometimes they are toys. There are a some photogorpahers/artists who make quite exquisite models of everyday scenes and then photograph them in large format.... or like Thomas Demand, make them out of paper and cardboard

[paulr]

plus, sometimes they are toys. There are a some photogorpahers/artists who make quite exquisite models of everyday scenes and then photograph them in large format.... or like Thomas Demand, make them out of paper and cardboard

yeah, all of a sudden it seems like three or four different people are doing this. i forget their names but have seen work at a expos. a couple of them looked like stephen shore scenes, but they were dioramas.

[tim atherton]

and there's that guy that makes lunar landscapes in a fishtank and photographs them in 4x5 - and keeps flooding out his downstairs neighbours...

there was also one I came across online that I dearly wish I could find again. I was researching Calvino's wonderful book Invisible Cities and someone had built these little cities based on the books descriptions and placed them on windowsills in offices or in crevices in broken down walls or under steps and stairways or in stairwells and then photographed them tucked away - these little "invisible" cities

[Marko]

There's Walter Wick (http://www.walterwick.com/), the guy that made I Spy (http://www.walterwick.com/ispy_main.htm) and Can You See What I See (http://www.walterwick.com/cys_main.htm) books.

I find his stage-building fascinating, for sheer patience if nothing else.

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

You get this effect by tilting the front standard upwards.

[Gordon Moat]

I have seen the effect that Amund shared here done on an even more extreme level. I cannot remember the photographers name, but there were some images taken from a high camera angle, and using selective focus. What was intriguing about those images was that they included people in the scenes, but you could not tell they were real people until you looked at the image for a while. I would suspect near wide open aperture, and tilting were involved, perhaps even a swing on some of the images.

A high camera angle looking down upon a subject can make it seem like someone's model railroad diorama, or something like that. When we look at miniature models of cities, we tend to be taller, and also tend to focus only upon a small detail area at a time. This is selective focus of our eyes, and the trick is to emulate that in the camera. Definitely a fun project, but it might be tough to pull it off convincingly.

Ciao!

Gordon

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

Check this site out: http://www.davidburnett.com/

[Gordon Moat]

Hello Amund,

I think I found some of that on the David Burnett site under 2004 Politics, particularly the first image. Indicates a Speed Graphic was used. This is what I had in mind with the people images, though I wish I could remember that other photographer.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

Gordon, Check out the Olympics 2004 section, lots of that effect there :)

There`s also this guy who does images like this with a LF-camera in a kite! But I don`t remember his name...

[Capocheny]

Amund,

Cool site... thanks for sharing it! :)

Cheers

[MartinHSchei]

Ok, i think maybe i understand this a little better now.
Thanks!

- Martin

[tim atherton]

I think the photographer you were probably initially thinking of was

Olivio Barbieri - who is a master of this

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760

http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/olivobarbieri/index.html

But there also these I came across today:

http://japan-photo.info/blog/

[Daniel Otranto]

http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-06/rd/toys/

[David A. Goldfarb]

Good example of this in today's _New York Times_ by Fred R. Conrad

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/10/us/11site.5.ready.html

If that link is problematic, try this link to the article, and you can find a link to the image--

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/11groundzero.html?ei=5087&en=8e6b140b2c447e4d&ex=1158552000&pagewanted=all

[Gordon Moat]

Distance and an aerial or way-overhead viewpoint make this work easier. I noticed in several David Burnett examples he was at or near ground level. I have taken those ideas and have been working on ground level and looking upwards to get similar effects. So far a bit of trial and error, then hit and miss, then a few successful images.

Now I have a different mental approach to visualizing scenes to make these work. My original thought was anti-Schleimflug, but now I think of it as Schleimflug (spelling?) though not in the more traditional way I learned to do it. On a preliminary review from an accomplished fine art photographer, his first comment was someone figured out how to get a view camera to turn out images more like a Lensbaby on a Holga, which was only in jest, since he liked the effect. What helped was that he recognized what was working, and which approaches were not working. Now I am at a repeatable results or predictable results level.

I hope more people try this out. While not to many people's liking, the results can be interesting.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com>)

[phaedrus]

I hope more people try this out. While not to many people's liking, the results can be interesting.

Well, here we go:

http://img-b.fotocommunity.com/0/6280800.jpg

This style soon becomes a blunt sword, I think. Should be used sparingly.
Christoph