Tips to Use Perspective in Photography

Perspective in Photography

Tips to Use Perspective in Photography with Jess Hess

It’s no secret that the key to good photography is balancing the seemingly endless array of options, styles, techniques, settings and so on. First you have your subject, which comes with its own set of planning. Hair, makeup, color schemes, design, etc. Then you add light into the mix, bringing in choices that need to be made on the placement of the lights, the power of the lights, the modifiers and so on. Next, you’ll mess with your ISO, aperture and shutter speed in conjunction with those lights to get your proper exposure. Let’s not forget the choice of other gear you’re using, like lenses or gels, that add yet another layer of planning and balance to get your exposure. But then you’re done, yeah? Just take the photo?

Well, not quite. When you pick up your camera and aim at your subject, you are composing your shot. Composition in and of itself has its own set of variations and choices that you’ll need to factor into the overall shot. Composition is an integral part of photography and can truly make or break a photo. In composition, you are setting your focal point and telling the audience what to look at. You are using leading lines to guide viewers’ eyes to that focal point and filling the frame with the important details you want to show. Your composition, in a sense, is the image. It is everything the viewer sees and perceives. One major component of composition lies within your perspective, and that is the key element and idea we’ll be playing with today.

Perspective in Photography is how your viewer sees an image. Changing your perspective can lend to the overall feel or tone of an image, or even help with something as simple as obscuring background noise. Utilizing perspective, you can make a subject appear menacing or absurd, or even soft and weak. You can help tell a story within a photograph solely by the perspective in which that image is shot. Allowing yourself to think outside the box and be mindful of your perspective will help you to tell those stories and convey the messages you want to convey in your work. 

Perspective in Photography

Get the full story

To read the full article, launch the digital version of the September 2021 magazine.

Leave a Reply

Want more content like this?

Check out our recent posts

yt thumbnail soft light beauty portraits with the westcott fj400

Creating Soft Light Beauty Portraits with the Westcott FJ400

The Westcott FJ400 is a beast when it comes to creating in-studio portraits for your photography shoots. Soft light beauty portraits are no exception. I love working with the Westcott lighting system and their softboxes. In my opinion, they are some of the best on the market and you can’t beat the price point.

Read More »
yt thumbnail 2 light boudoir setup

Continuous Lighting For Boudoir Photography

Ready to take your photography lighting to the next level? In this previously recorded live webinar, in our photography studio we go through some simple techniques for using continuous lighting for boudoir photography to create some epic portraits.

Personally, I love continuous lighting because it allows you to see exactly what you are doing in real time.

Read More »