Fisheye Fantasies F
isheye photography requires you to think differently. Fisheye lenses bend vertical and horizontal lines, and while some of you may feel this kind of look isn’t appealing or perhaps it’s ‘gimicky’, it does offer a unique and artistic way of interpreting reality.
An important thing to be aware of is the distortion associated with fisheyes. Subjects become more pronounced the closer you get to them. When I photographed the cow, for example, the subject-to-camera distance was about four feet. That’s why the cow fills most of the frame and is so distorted.
Sometimes a fisheye effect can be comedic as in the closeup of a highland cow from Scotland, below. Here the curved horizon seems to work simply because of the humorous subject. In other instances, this kind of distortion embellishes lines that are already curved as in the spiral staircase on the next page.
Another interesting aspect of fisheye lenses is that you can control the characteristics of the distortion depending on how you angle the camera. In other words, how you compose the shot impacts how lines are curved. For example, on the next page study the two versions of Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona. I took
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