Toytown trick

This "toytown trick" is becoming quite popular. Its even appearing in TV titles these days. The image processing emulates those expensive tilt/shift lenes that no-one can afford and gives a strange miniature look to a carefully selected full size image.

The trick is to force a very narrow line of focus onto an image and put the rest out of focus. Your image takes on the appearance of a macro lens shot, and the brain therefore requires that the objects in the image must be small. This creates the odd and strangely compelling toytown look.

There are other refinements that are often applied. It works best with bright sunny shots, and if you raise the colour saturation it also improves the illusion.

I am happy with the mechanics of the trick, what concerns me is the psychology of it. Why does the brain interpret it as a small scale image. Is the idea that "shallow focus equals small" something we have learned through exposure to such images? Does the trick work better in the minds of photographers?

 

In that case, would this trick work on Amazonian Indians who have not already seen the required cliche macro photo? Answers on a postcard please...

P.S. The overhead shots of Newbury were taken on Provia slide film with a 300mm lens on Nikon film camera leaning out of the right hand window of a Cessna 172. A surprisingly cold and violent experience.