Tilt-Shift Miniature Fakes

I caught up with my son yesterday for a really enjoyable photography afternoon. We went to a spot outside the city where the television towers stand. He said it was a great place to view the city at night. Yeah it is...his comment brought back memories of driving up there with my friends when I was his age. :-)

The view immediately lent itself to trying out a favourite photographic photoshop technique...tilt-shift...the process of taking an scene from a height and transforming it into a model diorama, something akin to the model train sets many of us boys had when we were kids and some luckily still do :-)

The technique is best explained in a wonderful tutorial I found on the internet.

www.recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

I've tried it out with various levels of success. The one below is one of my favourites:



The original photo:



As I said I've had various levels of success...it can take a fair bit of tinkering in photoshop but it's good fun and the results can be rewarding. As for the rule of taking the original shot from above...well it certainly is the most effective way but it is possible to achieve the 'model' effect from looking straight on as if you're looking at that 'train set from the little people' level.

Try it out...it's certainly a fun side of photography :-)