The Photographer's Eye: Graphic Guide

DISTANT

There’s an important difference between being far away from something and showing distance. I’m not splitting hairs. If the subject is far away, you can use a telephoto lens to bring it closer in the frame—a very functional way of dealing with the situation. If you want to see something more clearly, in more detail, you fill the frame with it and it’s one of the prime uses of the telephoto end of a zoom lens. But what may be missing from the equation is a sense of distance. Only “may,” because there are telephoto shots that do have a strong sense of distance; one of them is on pages 162–163. That works because the viewpoint is quite high—high enough to see mountains arranged one behind the other, with aerial perspective (haze) playing ...