In order to get a unique perspective, simply get under your subject and shoot from below.
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The Land Down Under is synonymous with Australia but I prefer to use the expression to encourage budding photographers to think about creating photographs from a new point of view. In any given situation, if you were to line up 100 photographers and tell them to take a photo of (fill in the blank), odds are all 100 would raise the camera to their eye and go click. And it’s very possible that if I were one of them, I would do the same BUT I would continue to think about my options, one of which would be to look at the subject from a unique perspective. The one I often default to first is to get down under it and shoot from below. Do I get some strange looks? YES. Do the photos always turn out better when I do this? NO. But when they do, I have a photo that stands out from all the others in that I did something different.
I like to think of this concept as shooting from a worm’s eye view. With this in mind, even the shortest subjects in reference to how humans view them become colossal monoliths. I encourage you get down on the ground and view even the most ordinary subjects and see how they are perceived to the worm. Strap on a very wide angle lens to create some intriguing distortion and a whole new world of photography will open before your eyes. Use the exaggerated depth of field and perspective a wide angle provides and get close to the subject to use the distortion to your advantage. Forget about the rules and just have fun. Try using your digital point and shoot as the LCD screen makes composing the image a lot easier than if you have to create a composition using the prism of your SLR. A very handy piece of equipment to use if you do use your SLR is a right angle viewfinder. It attaches to the eyepiece and enables you to view the image from ABOVE the camera rather than having to contort your body to view the image from BEHIND it when the camera is so close to the ground.
Don’t restrict your worm’s eye shooting to using just wide angles as there are many images you can create with a telephoto. The image of the two snow geese at late light was made with an 80-400mm zoom set to 400mm. Birds, architectural subjects, bridges, star trails etc are just some of the subjects that can have the worm’s eye view perspective but shot from a standing position.
Any and all subjects are fair game for shooting from a worm’s eye perspective. What is required is that you get right into the action. Think about immersing yourself in a football huddle looking up at all the players’ faces and shooting with a very wide lens. Or how about lowering yourself in a spring field of flowers and placing the camera at ground level giving the blooms larger than life status. Get close to the trunk of a tree or a tall building and point the camera upwards to show off the texture of the bark or stonework. The possibilities are limitless. Let your imagination run wild and simply have some fun using the worm’s eye view technique.
To learn more about this topic, join me on one of my Photographic Nature Tours. Visit www.russburdenphotography.com and click on the NATURE TOURS button for more information. Also, pick up a copy of my new book, Amphoto’s Complete Book of Photography. You can purchase a signed copy directly from me or visit your local book store or Amazon. Contact me at rburden@ecentral.com to order your signed copy.
