What we can naturally perceive, designers will always grapple with recreating. We see layers. Have you ever looked at a photograph and liked it but didn’t know why? Sometimes it’s that one thing that you just can’t put your finger on.. perhaps the light was just right. Or the way the shadow came down from the roof made your neck-hairs stand cold. For me, in the photograph below, its the shadow of the leaves in the bottom left corner. No matter what element drags you in or even repels you.. something about it is relatable.
Depth, texture, lighting, and shadow (where necessary) are all layers vital to a realistic image. As limitations are shattered by faster computing, game consoles, photoshop, and graphic engines, we’ve moved away from was that doctored? and are steadily approaching a realm of “that wasn’t real?!”
If you asked most people, “when did photo doctoring really become commonplace” they would likely say, “when photoshop was developed.” Photo manipulation is actually much older than we might assume. Would you believe that even this iconic photograph of Lincoln was consciously altered for effect in 1860?!
According to Photo Tampering Throughout History, a whole slew of political leaders utilized the capabilities of photo doctoring. Today its rampant, especially in the world of celebrity. It’s borderline plague-like. Much obliged, President Lincoln, we can now credit you with two social revolutions!
Okay. So we’ve established that things we perceive as real are sometimes easily recreated. We’re going to have to correct and complicate my original statement. Designers won’t always grapple to recreate what we perceive as real but they will always have to mimic human perception in order to get our attention. Depth, texture, lighting, and shadow (where necessary, of course). So the next time your out shooting some scenery, take a minute to consider what your capturing. It might help you snag an award-winner.
There are some really useful tricks that we can take from them to improve the quality of our photographs. Something in all this falseness can be salvaged.
In my next post there is both a Photoshop and iPhoto tutorial regarding light levels and basic photo enhancement. Skip if uninterested, there’s some cool stuff in there that might make mom happy come christmas time!
