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end of the beach, and in the last square you will be looking in

the direction of cliffs at the other end. In all of these shots the

wide-angle lens is going to make the background appear rather

distant and the subject will appear rather close, although this

is not a big concern, particularly if you’re taking a story-telling

approach to the image.

Having walked around the subject on those four most central

squares, now step one metre back onto the next ring of squares.

You now have 12 squares in this ring that you can walk around,

and each square will again give you a different perspective.

You have now doubled your distance away from the subject,

and you have a choice; you can continue to use the wide-angle

lens, although the subject will be half their original size in your

frame while the background will actually maintain the same

appearance. As an option, you can double the focal length of the

lens (perhaps to a “normal” lens) and make your subject appear

about the same size in the frame as they did in your original

photos. Of course, in doing this you will include less of the

background, although it will now appear closer. The important

thing to consider for now is that you are still near the middle of

the checkerboard, and yet you have already explored 28 different

perspective options for this photograph, including 16 options

with the wide-angle lens, and 12 with the normal lens.

If you step back another metre there is a ring of 20 squares

and if we step back another metre again (to the edge of the

board) there are 28 squares around the perimeter. From these

48 squares you could make photos using the wide-angle lens,

a normal lens or a short telephoto lens. That gives you 144

perspective options and if you add that to those 28 options from

near the middle of this playing board, that’s 172 options that we

have from an eight-by-eight metre square!

But wait, there’s more! One variable we have not considered is

the height of the camera. At every position on the checker board

you can choose to have the camera low, at eye-level or high

(standing on a small step ladder). Add that to the mix and there

are 516 perspective options, all from this one situation.

Line and length

Perspective is more than just an exercise in aesthetics.

For experienced reportage and documentary photographers,

along with many clever advertising and illustrative photographers,

finding the right perspective often has more to do with psychology

and how an audience will interpret a photograph.

Let’s take a closer look at what is actually happening in the

checkerboard exercise. For a start, as we walk around the subject

we’re looking for a visual line which connects the subject with

a relevant background. In the Bondi Beach example we had the

choice of including the sea, the cliffs, other people on the beach

or the apartments on the hill; as a photographer, you have to

decide what background is most relevant to the story you want

to tell. Remember, in some instances you might want to include

more than just one element of the background, like the beach

and the apartments.

Having found the line, the next step is to consider the

length of the shot, as in the distances between your camera,

your subject and the background. In many instances the

length of a photograph can be paired with your choice of lens

for the photograph, but don’t assume this is always the case;

photographers who make this mistake are often the ones who

become transfixed on a single element within the photograph,

and fail to see other opportunities in the scene, or the bigger

picture. A more important consideration is the apparent sizes of

the various elements in the photograph, and how making one

element larger or smaller than another within the frame might

affect the significance of a photo.

With the Bondi Beach exercise we started off just one metre

away from our subject and at that distance the subject dominated

in the scene. We then moved back to four metres away and this

move made the subject appear around a quarter of the original

size. At the same time, the background, which for argument’s sake

might have been 100 metres away, hardly changed at all.

30 AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY + DIGITAL SEPTEMBER 2015

LEFT AND RIGHT

An understanding of perspective

can be useful, particularly when

you want to try and convey

a sense of scale to a scene.

These two images of kayakers

at the foot of the Serena Glacier

in Patagonia were photographed

from another kayak on the

lagoon. In the photo on the right

I used a 20mm wide-angle lens

to capture as much of the scene

as possible. Because I was just

a few metres away from the

other kayakers, and they were

about 200 metres in front of the

glacier, they appear moderately

large in the picture while at the

same time we can include a lot

of the surrounding landscape.

In the second photo I wanted

to convey the difference in

size between the ice face and

our kayaks. To do this I used a

300mm telephoto lens from a

distance of about 100 metres

back from the glacier while our

kayak guide paddled within 20

metres of the ice face.

HOW TO Master Perspective