Respect Authority

Tilt-shift photography isn’t anything new, but for the uninitiated and the well-versed alike, well-done shots using this technique never fail to intrigue at the very least. The first time I found tilt-shift photography was a jaw-dropping experience, and while flickr groups have certainly mined it beyond all reason, Australian photographer Ben Thomas has practically made it his name.

Thomas, the so-called “City Shrinker,” just won the Australian Sony Projections’ new photographer of the year award. Jealous curmudgeons will naturally find this offensive as Thomas’ photography isn’t exactly innovative — the technique has been well-explored, and well-exploited at that, by many successful photographers. Nonetheless, a brief look at some of the City’s Shrinker’s work shows that he not only lives up to his name, but also routinely produces photography that inspires a sense of discovery, or possibly appeals to your inner metropolis-stomping monster… if you happen to be Godzilla. And if you are… hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.

Despite his nickname, I find Thomas’ work picturing subjects other than cities the most interesting. Tilt-shift photography is especially well-worn territory when it comes to cityscapes. One of the nicest things about this technique is that it asks the viewer to look a little deeper into the seemingly mundane, and where an entire sprawling urban landscape may become overwhelmed by its own content, detail pours out of the more specific shots.

These types of spectacular results can be achieved two ways. Tilt-shift photography relies on reducing the depth of field in a shot by either tilting the lens of the camera relative to the image plane, often requiring special lenses, or by artificially creating the same effect in Photoshop, which naturally lends itself to a lot more freedom, not to mention the ability to undo.

Now, without giving too much away, I am willing to bet that our City Shrinker here is quite the demon when it comes to Photoshop. I’m far from a purist — the end result is gorgeous, so I apologize you’ve spent your life savings and lost your wife over your obsession with traditional photography, but welcome to 2008, gramps, there’s more than one way to make a good photo. And that’s fine with me, Ben Thomas can shrink my city anytime, especially considering I have an email backlog of ways to reverse that problem.

[Creative Review]