In this assignment we had to mimic the dolly zoom, also known as the "Vertigo shot". Essentially you take successive pictures of a focused object. In each succession you move farther away from the object, but also zoom in in order to maintain the "size" of the object. The cause of the vertigo is due to the field of view getting narrower. I thought this was pretty straightforward, but it was a lot harder since sometimes the angles and sizes of the object would vary in each succession. I chose locations where the background behind the object is not a constant background, so that the vertigo effect would be larger. I did not have access to a professional grade camera, but I used an Iphone 7 which had good enough quality zooms. The first photo is of my friend Anoop, while the second photo is of hot chocolate.
Anoop 1
Anoop 2
Anoop 3
Anoop 4
Anoop GIF
Hot Chocolate 1
Hot Chocolate 2
Hot Chocolate 3
Hot Chocolate 4
Hot Chocolate GIF
The task for this part was to create fake miniatures by simulating the effect of selective focus cameras. Essentially my program allows you to pick two points that define your line of focus. The program can tell whether it should split the images horizontally or vertically. You keep the original image for everything in the focus area (defined by the points picked previously). For sections outside the focus area, it gets increasinbly blurred. I used a gaussian blur. For the closer sections they started off with a blur factor of 2 and I increased by 0.5 each section further away from the focus area. Finally, I stitched the spliced images together and then increased the saturation by 50% to give it more of a miniature effect.
Venice Lido Original
Source: https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/article36025715.ece/BINARY/venice%20lido.jpg
Venice Lido Final
DC Original
Source: http://paulasophia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WASHINGTON-DC-AERIAL.jpg
DC Final
Chou Hall Original
Source: Me
Chou Hall Final
Main Haas Original
Source: Me
Main Haas Final
I thought the vertigo shot was amazing, but hard to pull off because it requires precise measurements. It has a somewhat dizzying effect if done correctly. The fake miniatures was also amazing, but I had to be sure to choose photos that were aerial because they didn't work on close up photos. All in all, I learned a lot through this project and hope to use these techniques in the future.