Scale

PHOTO ASSIGNMENT | Seek moments that represent scale. This can be with the use of different lenses, macro scenes, or wide landscapes.

Scale gives the person looking at your photograph a frame of reference. Scale is often an under-utilized technique in photography, but can offer a unique variety to any portfolio by training your eye to see the big and small things as you’re shooting. Using people in wide landscapes is the best representation of scale. Scale is the size of one object relative to another. In photography we have a huge impact on the way we represent the scale of a place or object by the way we photograph it. Great photos are less about chance and more about knowing how to use the tools at your disposal to make the photo you want to create become reality.

Representing scale in photography is one of the most powerful ways to add drama and interest to a photo. Not knowing how to accurately represent the scale of a place can leave us as photographers frustrated that our images don’t represent what we saw and felt when we clicked the shutter. Good use of scale in a photograph can make the viewer ponder the size of the world and how small they are in comparison. Alternatively, scale can be represented through macro photography, by making your subject look larger than it really is. Scale can make us marvel.

How to best display scale in your photos:

• Use reference objects | Using something that is of a known approximate size to most people gives the viewer cues about the size of your subject. People are great reference objects. Search the hashtag #tinypeopleinbigplaces on Instagram and you will see tons of examples where photographers have used the known size of the human body to highlight how grand or expansive the surrounding landscapes are. People are not the only reference objects. You can also use trees, buildings, anything that is of a relatively known size to most people.

• Use perspective | Perspective is how things seem from the angle or distance from which you view them. It plays a big part in portraying scale. If you photograph a person from below it will make them seem taller and more imposing. If you photograph them from above it makes them seem shorter and smaller. The same goes for near and far. The closer your subject is to the camera, the bigger they will seem compared to their surroundings.

• Using the right lens | The lens you choose has a massive impact on your perspective, and you need to understand how different focal lengths work to portray scale. Standard focal length lenses see the world closest to the way your eye sees it. Usually this is considered about 50mm on a full frame camera or 35mm on a crop sensor. Using a standard focal length will not dramatically make the foreground or background seem any bigger or smaller than you see it in real life. Wide angle lenses expand the depth of the scene and exaggerate perspective by making objects in the foreground seem larger and objects in the background seem smaller and farther away. Telephoto lenses compress the depth of the scene and will make objects in the foreground seem smaller and farther away, and objects in the background will seem closer and larger.

• Use composition | Composition can also represent scale when used purposefully. Leading lines can be used to show the depth of a scene and negative space is a great way to make something seem small. Using the sky as negative space makes the earth below seem small, using the rule of thirds can also apply scale to show expanse surrounding your subject.