Changing Your Point of View

A sure way to photographic dullsville is to take a picture from the same point of view that everyone sees the same scene from day in and day out. For example, imagine you’re walking down your neighborhood sidewalk. If you stop on the sidewalk at any particular point and simply lift your camera up to your eye and snap, the result is something you would see every day. It could be interesting, but the point of view that the photograph was made from definitely works against it.

Now, imagine that you’ve dropped down to one knee resulting in a net decrease of elevation of a foot and a half or so. For any particular subject, you’ve just increased your chances of making something visually interesting. Now, get on your stomach and repeat.

To illustrate my point, one of my all time favorite conference shots came while I was sitting in the audience at RailsConf Europe in London. While goofing with my camera, I decided to try a seat level shot looking back at the audience as they were paying attention to the speaker. Here’s the result.

I think that if I had made that photograph from eye level, it would have probably been boring and hit the bit bucket. But, from a more novel point of view, it picks up a lot of interesting qualities very quickly, not the least is that it gives a fresh perspective.

Another example is this shot I made earlier in the year at Boiler Bay on the Oregon Coastline:

To get this shot, I placed my camera on top of the curb of a parking lot and used a large puddle as a reflecting pond. People walked by me and wondered what the hell I was doing and made some rather interesting comments. Little did they know what they were missing out on. Of course, I think I got my jeans pretty dirty that evening, but oh well.

I wish I knew more about the psychology behind this, but my guess is that we as humans are visually stimulated by novel points of view. If it’s something we’ve seen before, well, it’s just not as visually stimulating as a photo taken that we’ve not ever been able to see with our own eyes. Maybe this is wired up into the way our perception of the world is significantly composed of recall from memory. When we see something that doesn’t fit in our mental database, it forces us to really look at it instead of glossing over it and letting the details fill in from other things we’ve seen just like it. I realize I’m wildly speculating here, but it seems to make sense based on the limited understanding I have of the matter. (And, if you have pointers, feel free to leave a comment! I’d love to know more!)

Seattle-based photographer (and all around great guy) Chase Jarvis is awesome at finding novel points of view to make photographs from. He's been noodling on this problem for a while and goes to the extreme of rigging cameras with remote triggers in places where no human eyeball typically is, such as right in front of a biker traveling down a mountain road. Check out this video for some highlights and inspiration:

Another great YouTube example is Joe McNally's story of photographing the changing of a light bulb. Not just any light bulb mind you, but the one on the very top of the Empire State Building.

Bottom line: Find an unusual point of view and you’re well on your way to making an interesting photograph. I’m not going to say that you should avoid the zone 5' to 6' above the ground, but you certainly can’t hurt your chances by getting out of that zone of view.

Follow up: Bill Bumgarner has posted a follow up including several examples from his photo collection.