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08 May 2024

Foreshortening

Term: Foreshortening
Description: Foreshortening is a technique used in art to create the illusion of an object or body part appearing shorter than it would in reality. This is achieved by manipulating the angles and proportions of the object in the artwork to create the appearance of depth and distance. Foreshortening is commonly used in drawings and paintings of the human figure, where the limbs or extremities are depicted as appearing shorter due to the way they are angled or positioned in space. This technique is important in creating a sense of perspective and spatial relationships in a piece of art, and can be used to create dynamic and visually interesting compositions.

Perspective and foreshortening can be used for many applications, including elongating legs, making a subject appear larger in frame, and more. Basically, the closer an object is to the lens, the larger it will appear. Likewise, distance will diminish a subject’s size.

You can also place more distance between the subject and the lens to reduce the effect. For example, standing close to a staggered group of people will exaggerate the size difference between the subjects closer to the camera compared to those standing farther away. If you were to stand farther back, however, and use a telephoto lens to compress the image, the distance between each of the subjects in the staggered group would be less significant, and therefore the effects of perspective and foreshortening would be diminished.

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