Sunday, October 05, 2008

Photography, and a rather lovely video

I like taking photos. Why this is, I have very little idea. It started with flickr, back in 2004, when I realised that far from being some amateurs-showing-their-snaps site, it was a searchable repository of some of the most fantastic and diverse photography, both in subject-matter and style, that I'd seen.

That inspired me to buy a little Nikon compact. It was, and is, a very nice little camera. But all compacts are restrictive - they don't let you vary the aperture, with which you can get cool "this bit's in focus, and this bit isn't" effects, or the exposure, with which you can get equally cool "blurred people walking around a sharp building" effects.

Digital SLRs are larger cameras, with removable lenses so you can fit different lenses for different effects. I bought one relatively recently. And without becoming too geeky, I'll just say here that the tilt-shift lens is possibly one of the most versatile lenses ever invented for sheer jaw-droppingness of visual effects. It can let you take a photo of a tall building without it seeming to curve at the sides and bend backwards. It can make a photo of a street look like that street is in fact a tiny model street, if you do it right.

So I give you what I've seen in plenty of photos, but never like this: tilt-shift videography.



Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo

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