Sometimes, a single lens can not express your vision for a landscape scene. As my eyes see this scene, all looks amazing. When I make a capture with a wide angle lens, I get the image but what my eye sees as wonderful the camera renders less impressive. Here’s a way to reflect what the eye sees.

Initial image

First look at the scene, the red rock formations in the background look amazing. But, when I use a wide angle view to capture the entire scene, they are rendered very small. Remember, our eyes can focus in to see things different than a lens, especially with a wide angle lens. I was happy with the foreground. I decided to push the perspective with a second capture.

Initial image with wide angle view killed the rock formations in the background.

Second capture

Zooming the lens in allowed me to size the red rock formation in the background to a larger size. The secret here is to create a new image of the “proper” size to blend with the wide angle lens. Please note that I am creating art that matches my vision. I am not documenting the scene. That has an entirely different set of rules which to follow.

Image with lens zoomed in to better show the rock formations from the background.

Blend

Using Photoshop, I processed both images under the same settings so they would “live” together as fas as color and tone. Both images were opened in Photoshop as layers. The background magnified image is masked into the wide angle shot. Both together better show how my eye saw the scene. Learning how your camera sees verses how your eye sees is an important part of image making. Hence this technique, forced perspective.

Layers palette in Photoshop showing masking and additional post processing for the final image.
Final image after the blend and processing.

Share your thoughts in the comments. Cheers!

Yours in Creative Photography,

Bob