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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty: Controlling perspective with the wideangle lens > Hindu Offerings, Indian Quarter, Yangon, Myanmar, 2005
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Hindu Offerings, Indian Quarter, Yangon, Myanmar, 2005

A young girl staffs a street stall selling floral offerings just outside of the Hindu Temple in Yangon's Indian Quarter. Her face is painted heavily with Thanaka paste, traditional makeup worn by Burmese women and children as sun block and to make the skin healthy. She looks at my camera without showing emotion of any kind, which was very typical of Burmese. Many are not yet aware of the custom of smiling for the camera, which usually works to my advantage as a photographer. My wideangle lens spreads the scene for me, allowing me to flank the young girl on both sides with offerings yet still make her face large enough to see the incongruous detail of the Thanaka paste. The offerings, which are closer to my camera than they look, provide a foreground layer that gives the image its context. The middle ground layer holds the subject – the detached, painted child, crouching in the shadows. The background layer is subtle but still important, a row of bars symbolizing a barrier that may well keep this child in this place as she grows into adulthood.


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Phil Douglis08-May-2005 21:09
I am thrilled that my explanations are making good sense to you, Ruth -- and I thank you again for your persistent questioning. You seem to have learned a lot from this picture, and your questions have added a new dimension to this gallery in the process, because others can learn from the answers you have provoked.
ruthemily08-May-2005 21:03
thank you for clearing up all my millions of questions, Phil. i see now that even though a longer focal length could still have framed the same scene, you would have lost depth and you would have lost focus on either the garlands or the girl. and both are important parts of this expressive image - it is a portrait of the girl and the life she leads in order to survive.
Phil Douglis08-May-2005 20:29
Let me add a few more points to the previous comment, Ruth: I talked below of frame and focus. Let me now talk about perspective. Those are the three things any lens changes simultaneously -- the nature of frame, focus, and perspective. A telephoto lens would have made those garlands seem to be flat up against that wall because telephotos tend to compress perspective. A wideangle spreads perspective and adds depth.

This wideangle image also appears in layers -- first we see the garlands, then the girl, then the wall. A telephoto image would have put them all in the same plane. Why? Because the scale difference between the garlands and the girl is more pronounced with a wideangle lens. As you say, because I am so close to the garlands, I am exaggerating their sizes. If I had moved that close to them with a telephoto lens I would make them just as big, but I would have cropped out the girl -- the frame would change!

I hope this helps you see why a wideangle is useful in an image such as this.


Phil Douglis08-May-2005 20:03
Here are few more things to chew on, Ruthie: a tele can bring you just as close as this, but it changes perspective. It would not be the same picture. I wish now that I had made one with a tele so I could compare it to this one. It would have created the same frame, but if I had focused on the offerings, the offerings would be sharp and the girl soft. If I had focused on the girl, the offerings would have been much softer.

As for the blurry stuff on the right, it is the plastic wrapping around some of the stuff she is selling. I don't see it as distracting at all. It is context. That stuff is important to her, and so I included it. I could crop it out, but chopping off the right hand side of this image would lessen the important sweep of the bars behind her, and I don't want to do that. Sometime we have to accept things as they are. Sorry you are distracted by it.

ruthemily08-May-2005 09:33
you also say that you have moved distracting stuff that has no use in the frame, by moving in so they aren't included. a tele could have done that too, no? you could have just zoomed that bit further and effectively cropped the stuff out that way.
also, Phil, that blurry bit on the right hand side bothers me. it isn't important to the scene, but i get distracted by it, my eye moves there and then i miss the point of the photo for wondering what it is. what is it? i think you should sort it, anyway. it competes for attention with the girl.
(i'll leave you alone on this one now....for the time being at least!)
ruthemily08-May-2005 09:29
but had you backed up and used a longer focal length, you would have still got the same things in the frame? that's what i'm struggling to understand. when you are closer to the subject, you need the wide angle to fit more in, but if you backed up you could get the same amount in the frame with seemingly the same perspective? this, like you say, doesn't have the prounced "wideangle effect" that a tele would flatten or remove, so why not use a tele? being close up with a wideangle lens gives YOU more intimacy, because you were there taking the photo much closer to the girl, but i'm not sure that it really gives me as a viewer more intimacy? it gives me the intimacy, sure, but is it really the wideangle that has provided that? or just how you have composed the photo?
you say the floral offerings were actually much closer to your lens. again, i'm struggling with that! if that was the case, wouldn't a wideangle have really exaggerated their size? you say a wideangle "spreads" it all... i don't get it!! Phil, help me! i would have thought that using a TELE would have made the floral offerings seem more flat to the wall than a wideangle would have done. sorry for still being so unenlightened!
Phil Douglis07-May-2005 23:07
Thanks Ruthie, for asking me these questions. They allow me to discuss a benefit of the wideangle lens that has not been stressed before in this gallery. This image that does not have that dynamic curvy wideangle look you are apparently looking for, a look that makes the subjects seem to pop right out of the frame at you and imply a sense of great depth. Yet it is still a very expressive image, because of the small girl squeezed between the foreground "bars" of the floral offerings she is selling, and the steel bars that limit her world from behind.

In order to establish the relationship in space between the offerings, the girl, and the bars, I must be able to move in very close to all three. The wideangle lens allows me to do just that. If I had tried to make this shot with a longer focal length than 24mm, I would have had to back up, and in backing up, I would have lost the intimacy and spatial pressure of this image. But then you already knew this, right? So how have I changed the actual perspective here? As I say in the caption, the floral offerings are actually much closer to my lens than they look to be here. That's because my lens has "spread" the scene for me, and in so doing, allows me to make what you have called a wonderfully expressive photograph. I call this a "silent" wideangle shot. Its benefits come from what we DON'T see. All the distracting stuff that had no bearing on the image is now gone because my wideangle lens has allowed me to move in and take them out, yet still manage to squeeze that child between this curtains of flowers and steel. Hope this clears it up for you, Ruthie, and thanks for this excellent comment.
ruthemily07-May-2005 18:22
when i opened this one, i really wondered why it was in this gallery. i think it's a wonderfully expressive photograph but i am struggling to see what a wideangle perspective has added here? i have read the comments, and i understand now that it has allowed you to incorporate more of the scene - you've added context and environment either side of the girl. but had you been further back and using a longer lens to get the same frame, would you not have had the same photo? how has the actual perspective changed here? i'm looking forward to being enlightened! thanks Phil.
Phil Douglis04-Mar-2005 21:40
This shot is all about difference in scale, as you say. And there is an intimacy to it -- she seems so vulnerable, crouching in the back of that stall. It's the 24mm wideangle focal length that makes it work by allowing me to move in this close to the offerings and make them so much larger than she is.
Guest 04-Mar-2005 17:25
A very good exmaple of the wide-angle shot. The same composition from a distance would just not have the same impact. As it is, the lens works to ephasise the difference in scale between the subjects and makes it a very intimate image. My favourite here.

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