PSD MODEL SCHOOL #2 - Distance to Camera and perspective.
You are 3-dimensional, right? Unless you are a metaphysicist, in which case you are 11-dimensional and made of string!
Well, capturing the 3D you onto a 2-dimensional camera chip and then keeping it 2D for showing on screen or a print does funny things to how you look.
If I photographed you from above, you would look shorter. If I shot the snap from below, you would look taller. That’s why many fashion shots are taken from waist height or lower - to exaggerate the height of the model and to make them look more imposing. Of course, the number one rule of fashion photography is to say stuff the rules and do something different! But that doesn’t mean that a model can ignore what the photographer is doing.
Look at the two photographs above. First thing you look at is the eyes and face, right? But look at the shoulder next. In the image on the left it looks huge and prominent, in the one on the right it looks slim, and the shot is more striking overall. If a model aims her shoulder towards the camera, it definitely photographs better if that shoulder is dipped and looks too big if it is raised.
When models extend arms, elbows and hands towards the camera, they all appear bigger relative to the body, sometimes dominating the shot and making the files unusable. And if a model leans back in a shot her head can look very small in the photo relative to her body (especially if the photographer is shooting from low down) again rendering the shots unusable.
The trick is to understand that the camera ‘prefers’ everything to be on a 2-D plane, that’s the way that most shots look their best. So if the camera is at head height, and straight and level, then the model must imagine the area to model as being a flat pane of glass standing straight up from the ground where he/she is (like a big window), parallel to the camera. Anything in front of that pane will be bigger relative to the body and anything behind will be smaller. To keep all proportions correct, modelling should be to either side - not in front of or behind the window.
If the photographer is down low and shooting up at an angle, then that window to keep proportions correct tilts over forward to say parallel to the camera. So a model standing straight up will have feet and legs in front of the window (looking big) a waist exactly in line with the window (looking correctly proportioned) and a upper body and head behind the window (looking too small). Without performing any exciting and impossible levitation tricks, if the model leaned forward a little, then more of her upper body would keep in proportion.
So models, be aware of your position relative to the camera and watch out for it getting tilted backwards or forwards (or sideways) and think how do you keep parallel with it to keep in good proportions.
Other factors influence this, such as the type and focal length of the lens being used and whether or not the shot calls for a certain amount of exaggerated proportions for effect, but more about that another day!
