Camera Angles

Camera Angles

by William Lulow

Here’s a tip that many photographers don’t follow: look for different camera angles when shooting certain subjects. Portraits can also benefit from an awareness of how various camera angles distort the human face. Most people are used to using their iPhones or a DSLR and so they instinctively lift the camera up to the position of their eyes. So, if the photographer is tall and does this, most of her subjects will be shot from a high angle. Conversely, if the photographer is short, many of his subjects will be recorded from a low angle. Because of this, camera angle, where you choose to place the camera, should be another matter for some consideration based on you, as the photographer, and how you decide to photograph your subject, whatever it may be. If you are tall, look for lower camera angles and if you are short, consider using a ladder to get some different views of your subjects. Here’s one example:

Here I decided to place the camera directly on the cobble stones. Look what that did for the foreground and background! Here’s another from an opposite angle:

Whenever you change the perspective this drastically, it always begins to call for some different reactions than simple images taken at your own height.

Subjects like the human face can roughly be divided into three zones: the chin to just below the nose is one, nose to eyebrows is two and eyebrows to top of forehead is the third. By varying your camera angle, you can emphasize or de-emphasize each zone. If a person has a large forehead, say, you might want to shoot him/her from a lower-than-normal position to de-emphasize the forehead. If a person was jowly or had a “turkey neck”, you might want to shoot that person from a higher angle to make them stretch and thus smooth out the neck. Here is a diagram:

If you wish to emphasize a person’s mouth, thereby focusing more attention there, lower the camera angle. If you might want to make someone look more intellectual or “brainy” raise the camera angle to focus on more of the forehead.

So, the lesson is, use your camera angle to emphasize parts of the photograph to which you wish to draw attention. In the example below (a fashion shot), the intent was to make the subject look tall and thin. The camera was placed almost on the ground:

Most fashion images are shot from about the knee level. This seems to be a good compromise between just shooting at eye level and shooting with the camera on the floor. It elongates the subject and makes clothes look better. In the days of film and large-format view cameras, we often used the help of LOW ARMS attached to the tripod to be able to shoot from lower angles. As a matter of fact, one of my view camera tripods had a kind of foot, that could be lowered to the studio floor to help stabilize the big 8×10 view cameras.

So the knowledge that most photographers hold the camera up to their eye and always shoot from that angle without thinking about other possible angles should be incentive enough to begin to explore other camera position. This is one reason I like the Canon EOS 60D, 70D, 80D and 90D series cameras because they have moveable LCD screens. This allows the photographer more interesting angles from which to shoot. I can put the camera on the ground and compose on the LCD almost like it was a ground glass.

Here’s are some other examples:

Notice how the low angle here makes the sheer size of these ships much more emphatic.

Another fashion shot, but look where the camera was placed! And notice how it makes the body seem longer and taller!

The take away from this article is that camera angles often make the difference between a “regular” shot and one that has had some thought devoted to it. Think about which parts of certain scenes you want to emphasize and then place your camera accordingly. Get out of the habit of lifting the camera to your eye every time you shoot something. If you have a movable LCD screen, use the LIVE VIEW feature to get a preview of what your composition looks like, then switch to the taking mode to actually record the image. Also, one of my caveats to help improve any image is to SLOW DOWN your photographing procedure and think about your images more.