Did you know you can move mountains and buildings in a matter of seconds with your camera?
You can if your camera has any “zoom” capability, and just about every camera does.
Telephoto vs Zoom: Zooming in tight to make the distant object large is called “Telephoto” and zooming out wide to capture a wide scene is called “Wide Angle”.
Let’s say you wanted to take a picture of your friend on vacation, standing by a railing with the city in the background. If you stand close to your friend and set your camera on Wide Angle then the background city will be pushed back and become amazingly insignificant. However, if you stepped away from your friend a good distance and then set your camera to Telephoto by “zooming in” then you’ll be amazed at how close and large that same city appears. Your friend can be the same size in each picture but the backgrounds will be quite different.

The picture of the canon itself could be boring. By bringing the historic hotel closer the scene gets more interesting.
This technique is used in commercial and art photography to bring distant objects close and in view or to push away less interesting nearby objects. It’s all about what you want your viewers to see in the photo you take. Is the story “Look at Leslie in Downtown San Diego”? Or, do you want the viewer to only be focused on Leslie in the photo? You can control what the viewer sees by making distant objects appear larger and closer or farther and smaller than they really are.
You might have already noticed this phenomenon without realizing it. Have you ever taken a picture of something close by, like a friend and said “Oh that flag in the background is so small you can hardly see it.”? Well, next time step away from your friend and “zoom in” to make that flag in the background larger.
So go ahead and give it a try. Push some buildings and mountains around. There’s no right or wrong, only what fits what you are trying to convey in your photo.
View Dave’s photos at DaveNessPhoto.com,
Follow his progress at facebook.com/ViewByNess;
instagram.com/DaveNessPhotography;
and twitter.com/DaveNessPhoto.