From the course: Photography Foundations: Lenses

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Exercise: Taking ugly self-portraits

Exercise: Taking ugly self-portraits

From the course: Photography Foundations: Lenses

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Exercise: Taking ugly self-portraits

In the last video we looked at how your choice of camera position and focal length dramatically changes the sense of space in your scene. This was the whole business where I shot a portrait of Ben out on the lawn in front of a tree and there was a building around, and as I moved around we saw the tree get closer and farther. In that example you might think, "Oh, okay, I get it, in big spaces, there's a big compression of depth or change of sense of depth in the scene," and that's true, but it's important to understand that that depth compression, that stretching and squashing thing, also happens at a micro level on everything in your scene, and this can really get you when you're shooting portraits. Here is what I mean. I'm going to take a shot of him now and because I'm standing kind of far away I've got to zoom in. So I got my lens zoomed all the way unto 105 millimeters and I'm focusing on him and I'm taking my shot and if you look at this picture, we have a very nice portrait. You…

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