Graphic Media Knowledge

There’s nothing like a street that seems to glide into the frame. In this shot of a street in Quito,

Ecuador, there are several things you can look for to get this great perspective effect. In the picture, you’ve got the row of buildings going to a point seemingly to infinity, the median strip, and road guards running in the same direction, all to the same vanishing point. The sidewalk runs in the same direction

also, but it is stopped from continuing by a building behind the pedestrians. If the building weren’t there, the sidewalk, too, would go to the same vanishing point. Also note that the road guards get smaller as you move into the distance, as do the people. Finally, when I took the shot, I positioned my camera as close as I could to the line in the road (see the foreground of the image) and the guard posts to increase the drama of the perspective.

Adding to the perception of increased depth are the contrasting colors—the peach of the Colonial buildings and the deep blue of the sky, along with the neutral colors of the road and sidewalk. In the distance is what some people would call a payoff—a green hill that slopes down behind the building with a curve. Because it was such a sunny day, I shot with my exposure compensation down a few stops to enhance the color. You can also do this quite easily after the fact if you shoot in Raw format.  I could have shot at normal exposure and lowered the exposure in Raw format during post-processing. (You can increase and decrease exposure by using sliders in the Raw Menu window of image processing programs.) This would have the same effect as lowering the exposure compensation out in the field.