My film/video class has been interesting in changing the way i frame everything i take in day-to-day. My teacher made a rather interesting point about using a zoom lens the other day – a quick zoom shot is unnerving because human beings have no way to zoom in on a picture, but a slow zoom on something like a face is nature because it simulates us getting closer and closer to whatever we’re looking at.


Something else that i’ve been noticing is the distance i frame my visual “shots” from. I think we all mostly use a full or mid shot, where we’re looking at most of the torso of someone, plus their head and some of the space above it. A shot we almost never use in real life is extreme-closeup, where we don’t even focus on the entirety of an object but just the focus of its action. How often do we see a face in extreme closeup? Pretty much only when we’re close enough to kiss someone, wouldn’t you say? It’s hard to keep perspective on something when you’re that close … trying to remember what a cheekbone and a jaw have to do with the rest of a face or the entirety of a person. It’s almost easy to forget that anything else is there except for that fraction of a face… a visage floating more closely than you’d ever dare get with a camera.