Lower camera angles: Breaking the rules

Rules can be broken to great affect!

Do you have any examples of your work? You could post an image or two here and let us know why you think the angle works!

 

All my opinion here. It certainly can be done, if done right. If that person has the right abilities as it is to be a photographer and has the right technique. It's also something subjective. What you think looks okay, might not to others. Also factors to consider are how steep this lower angle is. Some lower angles are just fine. Sure, you can somewhat see up the doll's nose. Then others are just plain unnatural.

Personally, I think it has to do with seeing doll neck holes (right up under them anyway, if the angle is just that low) and how eyes appear from that angle as well. Both are unnatural and because doll necks don't have the same finesse as a human neck, it can look stiff and really awkward. Doll eyes have a certain dimension to them. Pupils I find, especially in some urethane and glass eyes, can look very flat and again, awkward. The worst of the up-nose doll shots I've ever seen just had the most steep of angles where I can see almost the whole of the circle of the doll's neckhole and the pupils in the eyes looked extremely inhuman due to that flat quality I mentioned earlier. I understand dolls aren't human, but I like to make it a goal that my dolls as I depict them in photography, have as much of a "human" quality to them as possible. And then some other lower angle shots just didn't have the technique to back it up. And hey, some dolls do look very strange from an extreme lower angle.

Otherwise, I am all for experimenting with the angle with good technique and mediation because it can really change the tone and mood to a piece.

 

Yeah, see, I don't think that last pic is unflattering at all, since it's not really like dolls have human-looking nostrils, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to critique it on that basis. It seems like there's a meme going around that Up-The-Nose Shots Are Bad, but as you said, doll noses don't look like human noses, so it never bothered me.... Neck joints may be a problem, but I don't think that the last three shots, at least, are unflattering (maybe the joint on the first one is, now that people mention it).

 

Well thanks. |D

For your first shot, I definitely see what you're trying to convey through his eye position. But the angle doesn't really do it for me, it's just too low and that neck joint really draws the eye and is very distracting. Maybe bring it up high enough where his neck joint is less obvious? Even so, an intimidating look can really be conveyed using body language. Dolls are articulate so use more than their face, especially when trying to depict a mood. Right now he does look really stiff and I suppose, had you not told me, I wouldn't have been able to tell the mood.

The same goes for the second shot. It can be fixed in other ways but since this is a question of angle, I'll say it sort of works. Maybe play with your lighting or again, use more body language.

The angle does work for the third. Beyond the angle, that composition could have been much better. Most of the frame is the flat rock face, while the rock face in the background of the doll itself looked like it would have been the more interesting dominant "background element." If I'm making sense.

In the last shot I'm not feeling the haughty. I think the main thing that could have improved this shot with the use of this angle should have been you paying more attention to the lighting. Right now the entire doll's face is light up (and overexposed) and thusly flat. Right now, I'm not getting a mood from this photo at all. Had to turned the doll itself so more of its face cast some shadows or even just turned the head slightly to the side while still using this lower angle effect, I have a feeling more could have come out from the shot.

Hopefully this helps some.

 

By lighting, I don't actually mean how you edited the photo but in the space that you actually took the photo. I'm all for adding contrast and such on Photoshop, since I do it more than often enough. But I mean your light source. A lamp, the sun, from which angle and direction it was coming from, etc. This is a good resource that I think you should look over: http://fav.me/d2hcprc

When people say your doll is overexposed, it's because you're putting in just that bit of too much contrast, super enhancing the highlights and blowing out the details on your doll. Even in your unedited photo, there's a bit of overexposure in the fingers. This can be helped by diffusing your light source and not placing your doll in direct sunlight because their medium is a bit reflective and thus easier to overexpose.

To take more advantage of pictures of that doll from above, I'd maybe change her eye position since that can greatly affect the personality of the character coming through in pictures. Right now, I personally find that they do look a bit odd, especially from the lower angle.

And I know what you mean about the third photo, about taking more than a portrait photo, since it's something I always try to do. I'm not telling you to focus more on the doll, I'm telling you to move the focus of your background, since the front most rock is very stark and jarring. I meant if that rock took up less of the frame and your background showed more of what's actually behind the doll, the picture could have more compelling.

 

I think there's a difference between using a low angle and an 'up the nose' shot, personally I do tend to find the later unflattering because it denotes a kind of awkward posing where dolls have their heads tilted up which like DT mentioned tends to expose the neck hole, obviously dolls necks don't bend the way ours do which is why it tends to look unflattering and ruins the 'realism' of the pose.

I pretty much always take my doll photos from an extreme low angle (i.e. lots of rolling around on the floor like a loon), I tend to do the same when I'm shooting people too because it helps elongate the model and gives the image a little more visual interest than if it was taken at eye level. Of course with dolls it tends to be about getting onto their eye level or lower to help them appear more real.
Even when I'm shooting a doll looking up from a low angle I try to hide the neck hole for that reason like in these shots:







I think it's mostly a matter of asking yourself how a real person would pose and hold their head and going from there.

blissfulchains: I realise this isn't really a critique thread as such but since you guys are discussing that shot, I think what actually throws it off rather than it being up the nose is the eyes, because they're looking forwards and dead center they just look kind of... well, dollish. I find that having a doll look off to the side even a little can bring them to life a lot more than if their eyes are centered.

 

My opinion is that the basis for 'up-the-nose' criticism is aimed at novices who do the whole 'dead-centre/badly positioned eyes, low, closeup angle and flash' shebang. Dolls' noses don't have the dark nostrils of humans, but they can be proportionally very large, so bad positioning can make them distracting. I like to use and see lots of different angles, though!


I really like pictures with lots of contrast, too, and Devil's Trill has a point about the positioning of the light sourse in relation to the doll (especially the face)- I think what prompted the criticism was in part the positioning of the eyes and also the lack of shadow around the nose gives it an odd flat look (this is less prominent in your original shot, but still there).

As for the third shot, I like the effect but from a visual point of view can again see what DT is saying- perhaps a way to achieve both effects would be to place the doll lower in the frame so that the more interesting background is visible, but move her off to the side (I would choose the right of the image) so that the focus isn't solely on her.

In looking at your first picture, I certainly did feel intimidated..! However, I do think it makes the nose stand out too much. This may be down to the extreme angle, but it probably doesn't help that the hair is right behind it blocking out the rest of the face; the angle might have worked on some dolls, but not in this case.

 

I know that when I looked at the first shot, I mentally went "Nose! Glasses! Oh, rest of face." I think that's what the nose being distracting thing meant.

Honestly, I don't get 'intimidating' or 'snobbish' from any of these pictures. The body posture is wrong, and frankly the glasses are distracting as hell. They become the focus because they're a little out of proportion and tend to be slipping down in those shots, which makes me think of a little kid with giant glasses instead of someone who's haughty. I DO like the eye placement on your boy, and think that with just a few tweaks that photo really could come off as haughty and intimidating, but your blond girl's eyes are wonky and her faceup is just too soft to make me think 'snob' and instead makes me think 'girl with slight lazy eye staring at the clouds.'

 

Here's a couple of examples of shots I did with a low camera angle:

 

There is some great advice here regarding neck joints and eye positions when taking shots at lower angles. Some sculpts also lend themselves to this angle better, such as dreaming sculpts. Otherwise, eye position should be changed to prevent the doll from looking wide-eyed. Here is an example of my Hyperon at a lower camera angle. It's completely unedited and taken as the sun was setting so please ignore the odd lighting, I just wanted to share the camera angle and eye position.

 

I'm still new to photography so this thread is super helpful. I'm actually the opposite & like higher angles more but I'm working on trying different angles. I think it also depends on the character too because a lower angle really does make the doll have a more commanding presance! Also i find tilting the head downwards slightly helps hide the neck hole & eye positioning is also SUPER important I usally have my dolls eyes looking off to the side (its harder to mess up too lol)

sent through the forests

 

Another handy thing with low viewpoints is that it can play with the scale of the doll versus their environment. If you get down REALLY low you can give the impression that the doll is 1:1 scale.

I don't have a picture of the effect with a doll, but here is an action figure (linked, as OT). The camera was on the floor and I framed the shot using the tilting LCD screen. I am not sure how you would do it without one.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5645/21933320601_a861bb80e8_o.jpg

 

I rarely use super low angles in my photos, but I have done it occasionally and liked the results.

 

Hi! I just wanted to tell you that I think your photography is absolutely amazing