I’ve been thinking about incorporating a tilt-shift lens into my current rotation for wedding portraiture, mainly for the selective focus aspect that it offers. If you’re interested in learning more about the history and principles behind tilt-shift, you can read on here. Yes, I’m taking the easy way out by not giving a full explanation but I’ve paid my dues in the form of working a view camera on the side of the road with a black cloth over my head. I wish I had a picture of that to share with you.
I wanted to try a technique with a regular lens that would fake part of what a tilt-shift lens does – giving the image a surreal, blurred, and slightly dream-like quality. Using my pal Nick as my subject [speaking of dreamy!] I used a method called free lensing – detaching the lens and holding it close to the camera body while shooting. It’s tricky to do and helpful to have your settings and focus down before you start snapping away. Results are below.
