Get started now with some trick

photography projects! Written by Jim T May (http://trick-photography.org)

The next time you travel or are out and about with a camera, consider starting a trick

photography project. It's not only a great way to impress and confuse your friends in equal

measure, but it also helps you to hone your photography skills and have fun at the same time.

The more stunning examples are usually digitally manipulated in photoshop, but even if you're

not a tech whiz there are a wide variety of trick photography techniques that are at your

disposal.

What you can do is to choose one or a combination of the trick photography techniques

explained below and focus on that. Keep taking photos based on that technique until you have

some really great examples before moving on to the next one. The idea is to try new things and

be creative to capture images that nobody has seen before.

Forced perspective

In our daily lives we use perspective to visually perceive the distances of objects and ourselves.

Distorting the perspective produces the illusion of abnormally large or small objects in

comparison to the rest of the objects in the photograph. This effect is possible because a

camera produces an image in two dimension as opposed to our eyes that work in three

dimensions. When we're unable to tell if the objects are actually further or nearer to the

camera and assume it is actually of a similar distance, then objects appear smaller if they are

further away while closer objects appear bigger. This is probably the simplest trick photography

to pull off, as you only need to move your camera and the subject matter around until you get

what you want.

Angles

Another easy trick is to turn the camera on its side. With some creative poses, you can create

mind-boggling images simply by turning your camera around. The trick to this technique is to

shoot something that when turned to the side has a completely different meaning. For

example, if you lie on the floor horizontally and take a picture with the camera rotated ninety

degrees, it would look as if you're climbing up a sheer wall vertically.

Levitation

This is also a simple but very creative trick that will leave your viewers scratching their heads.

You don't need photoshop to create pictures of people hovering a few inches off the ground.

What you need is an able and willing model who is happy to keep jumping around on your

command. You basically set a high shutter speed on your camera to remove any blurring that

will destroy the illusion, ask your model to jump and then snap away. The more outrageous the

mid-air pose, the more stunning it is.

Long exposures

Using the opposite of a high shutter camera speed are the long exposure trick photography

techniques. Most cameras especially the DSLRs allow you set and change the shutter speed

manually to set it slower. This technique is best used with a tripod as you'll want to reduce

camera shake as much as possible for a sharp image. This technique works best when you have

stationary subjects and moving subjects. Moving objects or a light source will create a blur or

trailing lights in the image, so some people have used this technique to create "light paintings"

by waving a bright light source around a stationary object.

Shadows

Good photographers pay a lot of attention to shadows, so being mindful of where and what you

or other people's shadow are doing is a good thing. You never know if you catch your shadow in

an interesting pose in contrast to a subject matter.

Picture masks

This is an interesting technique to play around, often with hilarious results. The idea is to hold

up a picture to cover part of your face where the edges are perfectly aligned to the real world

from the point of view of the camera. You can then pretend to be whoever's face that is now

grafted onto yours. The hardest part of this trick is to find a magazine or any pictures that is the

right size and matches your face and surroundings.

Conclusion

These are just some of the simpler trick photography techniques that you can immediately use

and take on as part of your photography challenge. They're fun to do and can produce some

spectacular results with a bit of imagination and patience.

Jim blogs about trick photography and special effects techniques, that people use to create stunning

photographs. You can sign up at his Trick Photography site to receive a free report on the top 10 trick

photography ideas for travel photos. Please feel free to share this document with your family and

friends if you think it’ll interest them, thanks!