8: Vertigo zooming
I was still interested in wide angle shots so I left the camera
positioned where it was in photo 6 and zoomed out. The result
(7a) was interesting – it showed more of the scene, but at the
same time if showed the ceiling and a good bit of the wall lead-
ing away from Oakhill.
I used Photoshop to crop the shot, creating photo 7b with a
completely different feel. Now the light primarily accented the
nose of the D&RGW GP7. The yellow truck moved to the back-
ground where it's visible behind the massive cedar tree, and
the Oakhill depot and team track are visible behind the block
of empty log cars. I added the green stake bed truck to the
scene, but it didn't seem to fit really well.
8
Swapping zoom for position
Photo 7b looked good, but even starting from an 18 mega-pixel
image, the extreme crop wasn't going to be sharp when printed.
I moved the camera back a bit and zoomed in to compensate
(8). This technique, referred to as vertigo zooming, is used in
video to create an unsettling feeling – the subject stays the
same size but the background and foreground dramatically
change size and perspective.
In effect, photo 8 was an uncropped version of 7b. But the
green truck with the strange rear window reflections was vis-
ible, the nose of the green stake bed was cut off behind the
fence, and the GP7 lost a good deal of its size.
9: Contest candidate? Not quite...
9
Up the Creek - 5
MRH-Aug 2013
