Beauty of Scale

Figure 1. Park Avenue, Arches National Park.

There are cases that the scale of a scenery is the point to photograph. For example, a giant sequoia is so huge, the Grand Canyon is so massive or the road is so long.

The intuition is to use a wide angle lens to handle such a case. It seems to make sense to catch a large scale scenery with a lens having large coverage. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in many, if not most, cases. To show something huge, we usually need to show something small. To put it in a more general sense, we need to have a reference to compare. This is usually achieved by a telephoto lens rather than a wide angle lens.

On a winter trip, I was in Arches National Park, Utah. One thing I feel so strong is the huge rock along the road, Park Avenue and Courthouse Towers for example. figure 1 is shot near Park Avenue using a 15-85mm lens on Canon Rebel XSi. The focus range of this shot is 85mm, which is 136mm on a full frame body. Some people don't like the car in the shot, though I include it on purpose. The reason is to provide a reference to highlight the huge size of the illuminated rock. I prefer RV or bikers, but it is difficult to have such a luxury in winter. I like the car in the shadow and so it won't compete with the illuminated rock I want to show. The feelings of scale may still work without this car because people have sense about the road. Overall, a car is a better reference than the road to enhance the feelings of the scale. Figure 2 is another similar case shot in Yellowstone National Park using a 120mm lens on Canon Rebel T2i (192mm on a full frame body).

This is one reason why some scenes look good on the spot, but they don't look quite right in the photo. When we frame a scene, something may lose. The feelings about the scale is easily lost due to the finite size of the photo format, just like the accuracy is lost due to finite digit length of the computer in scientific computation. A larger size of the photo may help, but it doesn't solve the root cause.

Photographers may not notice the difference between standing close with a wide angle lens and standing further with a telephoto lens. This does make difference to the effects of scale, which is a vital element in some scenes. It's not about lighting, post-processing, or quality of the equipment. It's how you know about the scale.


Figure 2. Summer Afternoon near Chittenden Road, Yellowstone National Park.