Tilt/Shift

There's a hip new trend that has been sweeping the world of photography for the past few years, and it involves a special technique known as "Tilt Shift" photography.

Essentially, it involves taking photographs from an elevated perspective and altering them so as to make the image appear selectively in focus, much as the "macro" setting of a regular digital camera allows for up-close photography of smaller subjects. The resulting images make everyday settings appear miniaturized, as if a typical street scene was nothing more than a model or smaller version of the real thing.

So, since this blog is all about PERSPECTIVE I figured that Tilt/Shift would be well worth analyzing! However, after doing a bit of research I found that my current digital camera was dreadfully inept for such photography. Thankfully, the wonders of Photoshop allow an accurate replication of Tilt/Shift photography to be achieved! Here are some of the pictures I have applied my home-made Tilt/Shift photography towards...

Downtown Cincinnati

Airplane graveyard

Brother on water

A Different Perspective

A panoramic view from my office window

This place is nuts! It is impossible to get bored in New York - everywhere I've been there has always been something going on that is new and unexpected.

Yesterday I was riding the subway and it was very full. Every now and then a homeless person comes onboard and begs subway riders for money for one reason or another - some because they have a family to look after, others because they need to get food for the night - but yesterday instead of a lone beggar coming onto the subway, two older men stepped aboard and, although they were both homeless, they began singing to entertain the passengers. Where else in the world could this possibly happen?!

It was so neat. I think the urban built environment caters perfectly to these kinds of encounters, and I look forward to many more such adventures while I'm here.

This brings me to think that although I originally intended for this blog to be about a design student's perspective of architecture removed from specific personal places or experiences, perhaps more can be learned and disseminated by sharing the specific events of one person in one particular place. The events and situations that I will experience while I'm in New York are some of the most exposed that anyone could have to the world of architecture and design, and so I shouldn't limit my posts to generic musings, but should instead describe my personal adventures in the city and then link them back to the larger themes.

Just as I started this post off with a panorama of the view from my office window, let me close it with another wide-angle perspective. Even though the world is big and daunting, sometimes zooming in and focusing on our own particular encounters and strengths is the best way to make the most of our situations and opportunities. Let me finish with this quote,

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Wild at Heart by John Eldredge."