It’s time to play a game. A game that might help you become a better photographer.
I’ll even give you a choice of which team to play for: home or auto.
If you want to play the short version of the game—warning, it’s not all that short ;~)—find a television ad for a home improvement show or for an automobile. Break down all the clips within the ad: what lens was used for each and where was it positioned? The first tells you something about how the videographers are composing, the latter tells you about how they are using perspective—position of camera relative to subject—in their framing.
Wait, how do you figure out what lens and perspective was used?
Simple: I picked the categories because you have probably have at least one of each (i.e. home and auto). If you picked auto and we have car interior and exterior images used in the ad you picked, put a versatile zoom on your camera and go out to the driveway and try to figure out what they were using and where it was positioned. Likewise, if you picked home, do the same task around your home. Warning, you’ll probably need willing subjects to pose, because a lot of what is happening also involves the position of the subject in/around the home/auto, and that subject is usually human (but keep reading ;~).
If you can guess the lens/perspective reliably and quickly confirm it, congratulations, you’re ready for a job in the photo (or video) industry. If you are bad at your first guesses and it takes you quite a while to work everything out, congratulations, you just got a valuable lesson: perspective informs composition.
No cheating. Your re-creations have to have the same subject/environment relationships as the ad you were trying to decipher.
Oh, you wanted to play the longer version?
Simple, instead of a short ad or two, pick a half hour or hour television show. For homes, you have plenty of choices over on the HGTV network. For autos, you have your pick of Motor Trend shows, or for advanced work, early BBC Top Gear programs.
The difference between the short version and long version of this task is that with a 30-second ad, you probably only have 10-15 images you need to figure out, and they’ll tend to all be somewhat different (at least in perspective). With a 30-minute program, you’ll start to figure out that they do the same thing a lot, which is one reason why those programs start to feel formulaic and boring visually.
For those of you trying to figure all the above out and where you’d find a likely target, check out this Toyota ad. You might not have any cows or sheep available, by try to figure out those same lenses, angles, and perspectives using your dog, you might be surprised. Bonus credit: how many of those clips could you have taken with your tripod fully extended? ;~)
Yes, I’m going to challenge you this year. I hope you’re up for it.
