Simone came home the other day after going to a euro vision "party" and told me that they used some cool effects for the intro's and outro's of the show. Curiosity got the better of me so after a bit of googling I found out they were displaying video that used an effect known as "tilt shift". So what is "tilt shift"?
Essentially, it is a form of photography (or video as it turns out) in which the focus has been altered (usually digitally) to give a perception of the scene being miniaturised. In effect, it makes ordinary cityscapes look like photos taken of Cockington Green.
A good example (of the video format of this effect) is the following clip I found of the Coachella Music Festival in the United States:
In terms of photography, a simple Google image search will reveal endless examples, but I was keen to give it a try myself. Unfortunately, I had not taken any pictures for this particular purpose, so I feel my shots are a bit too far "back" from the action to be as impressive as they could. Generally, I think this effect would work best if there can be people or vehicles in the scene to add a greater sense of perspective.
In order to make the pics, I followed this guide: http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php
It was quite easy and worked perfectly - my first time ever playing with Photoshop as well, and it has got me interested in playing around more with post-processing. I have came to realise though, that because I am colour blind, I really do have to take a stab in the dark as to whether the changes I have made are any good (colour wise)!
Anyway, here are the results, both are pics I dug up from our trips to New Zealand in the beginning of the year:
