Using your feet instead of your zoom to change the perspective in portraiture

posted Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 6:00 AM EDT

When working in the field, there can be a lot of things to consider and it isn’t always easy to keep everything in mind. Suppose you’re shooting portraits with a zoom lens and there is a distracting element in the background you want to get rid of. You can just zoom in, right? Sure, that’s an option, but don’t forget about the powerful photographic tool you always have at your disposal, your feet! Jay P. Morgan says in his newest video for The Slanted Lens that you should be moving your feet to change your portrait perspective rather than zooming in or out.

Why is that? When you zoom, you don’t change the relationship between your subject and the background, relative sizes are staying the same because you are basically just cropping in by zooming. Sure, the change in focal length can change the depth of field and how the background appears, but its position and size will stay the same. Alternatively, when you move closer or further away from your subject, you can change the perspective and how the background relates to your subject. Check out comparison shots in the video below.