Cutoff Perspective
PHOTO CHALLENGE | Take photos that represent a cut off perspective, think widely about this prompt, get creative, and show us what you shot!
Do you see things from a grand, wide viewpoint? Or do you see the minute details? In either instance, looking for a way to fill your camera frame is to look for the most visually powerful and impactful part of your subject to “cutoff”. You don’t have to change your style or how you see things, but instead adjust your perspective.
It can be exciting to change your normal, but also challenging. When you learn to see things and capture images from a totally different perspective, you can produce interesting, beautiful and sometimes powerful images that will draw the viewer's eye and evoke an emotional response. You can achieve this by playing with a few different angles, by not settling for your first instinct, and instead, asking yourself what you see and how else you can capture the photo.
Changing perspective will most likely take you out of your comfort zone as far as positioning yourself and your camera, but when you begin to look at different objects, subjects, and the world in general on a totally different level, you can take your photography skills to a whole new level.
Perspectives
Photograph looking up or down | The more you fill the frame with whatever you are shooting from this up or down perspective, the more appealing and visually strong the image will be.
Shoot from ground level | Whether shooting for tiny details or just changing your angle, look for leading lines and texture as you shoot.
Fill the frame | The point of the cutoff perspective and filling the frame is to alleviate potential distraction and ensure your subject is edge to edge in whatever sense that feels right to you.
Focus on the foreground | We are taught to let the emphasis of our images be the object or subject in the foreground. Whatever is front and center, sharp and in focus is usually what we want our viewer's eyes to be drawn to. Try switching up your view on this and let the foreground object(s) or subject be what guides the viewer's eye to the background. This flips the rules, but this change of perspective can give you and your viewers a totally different way of seeing things. The goal is to get them to look beyond the foreground of the image to see what is in the background. And depending on the background you are using, this can work by either blurring the background out a bit or keeping everything sharp and in focus.
When thinking about this cut off prompt, you’re essentially forcing the viewer to see what you want them to. You’re taking out the guess work, filling the frame exactly as you want it to be, and even getting creative with scale and perspective. This could easily be the most creative prompt you’ve done or straightforward; whatever you decide.