Techniques used in Photography to modify reality

Almost everyone in this day and age understands the effects of Photoshop. People are not so shocked to hear that the models in their magazines and posters that hang all around the nation are edited--that their wrinkles, eye bags, pimples, moles, hair, facial structure, body curves, and practically everything in that photo has been changed so much so that it is the ultimate definition of fake. Technology has advanced so much that everything in that photo could be computer generated. Digital cameras have become so cheap that anyone can buy them and do the same. Skies are made bluer and grass greener. We feel like the reality in photos is always more exciting than the real world outside of our windows. And even though sometimes people claim that it has not been photoshopped, the "reality" reflected in that photo can still be skewed, approached from other angles (i.e. the Aerie campaign of American Eagle (NOTE: open with discretion) where they do not use photoshop, but still it is not as "real" or reflective of reality as we would like to think--they use beautiful models fitting ultra narrow standards of human aesthetic and perfect studio lighting). I am about to show you what are the effects of different photography techniques (with no special lights, studios and assistants) on the actual photo. Everything is done via camera by the hand of the photographer. Lens – Focal lengthThere are three general categories for lenses: wide, normal, and zoom lenses. Normal lenses render the image close to how we see with our eyes. The field of view on a classic 35mm camera with a 43mm lens will be almost the same as our eyes see (minus the periphery vision). That determines the “normal” lenses. Normal lenses range between 35mm to 50mm. When we use lenses of that type the perspective will be close to the perspective we see. Normal lenses are used mostly for photojournalism and street photography, and, generally, are the most widely used out of the three.Wide angle lenses are anything below 35mm, which widens the perspective. Wide angle lenses fit much more into a frame than normal and zoom lenses. These lenses are used mostly for architecture or real estate photography for their ability to capture more of the room. Generally, those lenses are not used for portrait photography, because they distort reality in such a way that makes peoples' faces unpleasing to the natural eye.Zoom lenses change the field of view to a very small angle and things appear much closer than they really are. Lenses with focal length around 100mm (85mm and 135mm are most popular) are used mainly for portrait photography, because they do not distort facial features and therefore create the most aesthetically-pleasing photos. Even longer lenses (200-600mm) are used heavily for sport and wildlife photography for its zooming ability.Now, many times, people say if you don’t have a zoom lens, use your feet to zoom--but while it's true that it will make the subject of a photo bigger, it also changes the perspective. I can take the same photo with a wide angle, normal, and zoom lens, all in which the subject will be the same size, but the perspectives of each photo are different. With a wide angle lens, we will see much more surroundings than with the zoom lens, but it will seem like the subject is farther from the surroundings. A zoom lens shrinks the space--meaning, everything seems closer to each other.  This is how far the "danger" actually was.It is easy to misuse those features. With a wide angle lens, I can pretend that a certain space is bigger than it actually is (as is popular in the real estate world). Or, if someone’s face or body is wider than desired by the photographer or "societal norms," the wide angle lens can be, and often is, used to “correct” it. With a zoom lens, we would see a very frontal, flat view, and we would be able to see how the person is wider than society's beauty standards. On the other hand, with a zoom lens and its feature to shrink space, we could create a photo in which  someone can be standing relatively far from something dangerous, like a warzone, and the photographer seems much closer to that danger than they really are. We can play well with those features and create different realities and feelings.[vimeo 152514220 w=640 h=360]Dramatic Filmmaking with a 2000mm Lens from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo. Depth of fieldWe can decide if we want to have everything in a photo in focus, or just a particular part with the rest blurred out. That depends on the size of the sensor in the camera, the focal length of the lens, aperture (f-stop), and, lastly, the distance from the subject.The bigger the sensor is, the more shallow depth of field we are able to achieve. That is why photos from phones have pretty much everything in focus, because the sensor is really tiny. Sensors in the iPhone is 6mm diagonally while full frame camera like Canon 5D has the sensor size of 43mm diagonally—that is almost 40 times bigger in surface than the iPhone 6. Even though the iPhone has a great resolution, which people many times think that resolution determines quality, the photos will never achieve a blurred background as from other cameras with bigger sensors, unless it is a software-created blur, as the iPhone 7 has introduced.Focal length is the second factor to determine the depth of a picture. Many people have seen videos from GoPro, which is a fish eye camera that sees almost around the corner. Developers in GoPro didn’t have to create some smart focusing system, because wide angle lens has automatically bigger depth of focus. And because GoPro is a sport camera, they created the lens with focus set to infinity, with everything always in focus (even subjects as close as 5 inches (GoPro Focusing distance example video)). With zoom lenses, things get more blurred out naturally. It all comes from physics and how light breaks inside the lens.Just because I am using a zoom lens does not automatically mean that it will have a shallow depth of field. The third way to control depth of field is by the aperture (the “f” number, f-stop). The lower the f-stop number, the more light can enter the lens and hit the sensor; the higher the f-stop, the more closed down it will be, and that will produce a greater depth of field. It is again a lot of physics, but, simply when the aperture is closed down, less light rays hit the sensor, producing a sharper image.Lastly, the distance of the subject from the camera affects the depth of field. The closer the object gets to the camera, the lower depth of field we can achieve. Everything further than fifteen feet with a normal lens (50mm lens and aperture f1.4) will be pretty much in focus. What is closer than that will have options of having a shallower depth of field.Now this is a great feature of photographic art, to decide what is in focus and what is not. If we understand how to achieve this, we can affect how the final photo will feel. We can hide things in the background which we do not want necessarily to be seen, or the opposite. Shutter speedAnother thing that we can control in the camera is shutter speed. Shutter speed affects how long the shutter is open, with light rays hitting the sensor. The longer the sensor is exposed, the more blurry the picture will become, and we will see some movement recorded. These values are counted in milliseconds. Usually if the photo is taken with a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second then we will not see anything blurred out, unless the subject is moving really fast (i.e. a car driving down a highway, or a person running). If we go with a shutter speed shorter than that, we will start seeing more movement. When we get as low as 1/15 of a second, people walking on the street will become smudges. Times in between 1-30 seconds and longer will start creating car trails. There are techniques to expose the sensor for several minutes, creating mirror-like looking rivers and smoothed out clouds in the sky.This can create a lot of interesting effects in photography. It can show from more action to more serenity based on how much motion we can see in the photo. This technique is used more as a creative element than to try to change reality. I do not think there is a huge danger of misuse of effects of shutter speed. AngleWe can definitely change a lot of things by the angle we choose to take a photograph. This is again nothing special; no special preparation is needed. You can see many people with cameras out on the street and most of them share one characteristic: they take pictures from a natural position (standing). This creates all pictures from pretty much the same position, which is about five feet above the ground. People do not think about it too much, but the position from which the photo was taken changes a lot about the photo.If we take a photo from below the normal eye level--let’s say, from a small child’s point of view--it can create an emotion of intimidation, sense of inferiority, or even awe towards the subject of the photo. Along that same note, if we are looking up at someone, feelings of authority and power within that subject are most likely to be perceived. On the other hand, if there is a photo from the top looking down at someone, it creates this sense of having an overview scope of the world, of the subjects below you. A photo taken from below can make us feel small and under pressure; from eye level, make us feel included and present in the moment; from above, make us feel like we are superior or powerful, or the subject is powerless and/or inferior in some manner.These things do not have to be extremely obvious in the photo; even a few inches makes a difference and any good photographer would know it. We can create a height difference between two people, or we can make people look more even, based on the techniques we use.  CompositionPretty much everyone with a camera has heard about the rule of thirds. It is the most basic rule for creating a decent photo. We know that if we place the main subject of the photo one third from the top and side of the frame, the photo will most likely feel natural and aesthetically-pleasing. This is of course not always true, but it is the easiest way how to teach people to take pictures that do not look horrible.The rule of thirds is just a simplified version of the Fibonacci Sequence, a mathematical equation found in nature (i.e. sunflower seeds, snail shells, the galaxy, etc.). For some reason, our whole universe follows this sequence, also called the golden ratio, and if we organize objects in the photo following this sequence we will be able to create more powerful images, because our eyes naturally follow the golden ratio.Photographers use those rules to guide our attention through the photo to create some emotional response in us. They also use more techniques: leading lines, symmetry, the size of an object, and center composition are often utilized. Our brain will try to find the point to which all lines in the photo point to. Naturally, we feel like the point to which those lines lead to is the main focus of the photo. Symmetry is considered beautiful and therefore a symmetrical photo feels very natural and aesthetically-pleasing; and in photos in which that symmetry is abrupted, our attention naturally focuses on that break. Center composition is very simple, but it works well. What lies in the middle of the frame brings attention to itself. And, lastly, the size of an object matters, which is pretty intuitive to most people and photos are often taken with this in mind. Again, not everyone realizes such simple truths, but a good photographer is very familiar with all of these powerful aspects to creating a striking photo. PosingComposition is closely connected to the posing of a subject, which does not necessarily have to be directly verbally controlled by the photographer. A  photographer can decide to focus on a specific stance of the subject in its "natural habitat," waiting for the right moment to capture a specific gesture, stance, or expression they have already planned to capture to fit their intents for the photo. Many times, people can take these isolated moments captured on camera and take them out of context, and spin a story however they want, even if the actual event from which the photo was taken had nothing to do with the story it supposedly supports. For example, in the media you often see headlines talking about a celebrity's "horrible, $1,000,000,000 divorce" plastered on a very unflattering photo of the celebrity in which their face looks incredibly disgusted. However, that expression was most likely only a millisecond long and was not even captured in the context of the facial expression being a response to the topic of the divorce. And that is just one example of mankind's temptation and tendency to take photos out of context to falsely support their own agenda.Another common scenario for photographers in posing their subjects is how to pose their subject in such a way that their features would be most flattered in a photo, combining multiple things about which I have already discussed. They would use a longer zoom lens to capture the subject in a more appealing way, will use low depth of field to focus our attention on the eyes of the subject, and will use center composition and the symmetry of the person's face--all used to culminate in a photo capturing them in their best light.But what if the person does not have a perfectly symmetrical face? What if they are wider than desired? What if they have a double chin? A good photographer knows very well how to modify the way the final photo will come out from the camera. If the person does not have a symmetrical face he will just pose them a bit more sideways (it is called ¾ portrait: in between profile and frontal view). This will hide the "imperfections." The photographer will see which eye is bigger and which smaller and will position the smaller one closer to the camera that will create a very small difference in the distance of the eyes from the camera and therefore change their sizes to be more equal to each other.If someone has a bit wider of a face, we can use a wider angle lens and get closer to the subject to use the distorting features of wide angle lenses so as to capture the face in a seemingly thinner way. The same counts for someone bigger in weight. We can manipulate the size of an object based on the use of lenses and composing the picture. If I take a photo from above with a wider angle lens, the distortion will work in a way that the body will feel smaller to the head and we can make someone seem slimmer than they really are. This is often why people take selfies from above.A perfect example with much more going into this subject is this video which shows how much people change the reality through posing and angles and sometimes creating the situation.I also created a short example how waiting for the right moment can change everything about the truth.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UCiRk3bOug&w=560&h=360] What is all this for?Now why do I talk about all of this? There are so many different combinations of all those techniques which  impacts the photo's feel and presentations. A subject looking away from the camera can create a sense of uncertainty, while people looking into the photo can make us feel more at peace. We can decide what to show and what not to show in the photo, which can potentially be used to mislead. And there is so much more that affects a photo: color, lighting, and editing.We have to understand that there are many things we can change and therefore lie to people who do not understand that photographs are many times very thought through and are created with a specific agenda. This is a request to all photographers to know these techniques and use them wisely and thoughtfully. Do not use them to lie to and mislead people. There is not an easy way to say what is okay and what is too far with modifying reality through use of these techniques. It will vary greatly based on the intent of the photo--if it is for journalism, for which we are trying to capture reality as truthfully as possible, or if it is an artistic portrait, or it is created with the thought of confusing people’s minds.This is also a warning to everyone else who may behold any photograph and can be easily emotionally manipulated, and, therefore, have their future decisions affected. Know that there are ways and techniques how to make you feel a certain way and believe certain things about the object of the photo. It doesn’t always have to be the way it appears and there may not be any photoshopping or special lights and equipment used. A basic camera with one lens which can shoot anywhere from wide to zoom can transform reality in many ways.I can not draw a line and say what, exactly, is okay and not okay to do. Of course it is always heavily dependent on what the purpose of the photo is--again, wheher it is photojournalism, or portrait photography, or fine art photography. As a Christian, I know that I am not supposed to lie to people in my documentary work. My documentary work is supposed to be as close to the truth as possible, even when it is not pretty. It is like most of the Old Testament. A lot of the Old Testament is written with beautiful wording, but many times portrays the ugly truths of what really happened (e.g. killing the whole earth by flood in Genesis 6-8). Then we have in the Psalms the most beautiful poems which are not always trying to capture the real events but speak into people's emotions and therefore are much more creative and imaginary.All photography should be glorifying to God and should create longing for heaven. If it is a photo of brutal reality, it will make us think of God who is the ultimate ruler of this world and his second coming is close (Matthew 25:31-46). If the photo shows the beauty of this world (i.e. landscape, a beautiful person, or even simply just beautiful colors), it should cause us to think of God and his beautiful creation. All photography should be worshipful (1 Coritnhians 10:31). We have to always be mindful that what we create affects others and we as Christians are called to love our brothers as ourselves, therefore we have to be creating with prayer so it would be created for God and we should make as little room for the devil and his agendas as possible. Here is one last example of manipulating a photo in a way which is not meant to lie to people, but to show the immense beauty of God's creation (even if that was not the artists intent).[vimeo 140630379 w=640 h=360]