Tilt-shifting "Real-life" into Miniature

I discovered Tiltshift Maker through How About Orange, where Jessica Jones posted both original and tilt-shift photos of Venice (that's her image above). Tilt-shifting is a photographic technique that creates special effects when taking a photo, shifting the focus in unusual ways. One effect is to create the illusion of miniature scale models out of photos of real-life scenes.

You can go to tiltshiftmaker.com to easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift style miniatures; no registration or sign-up required. Needless to say, some pictures work better than others.

If you are inexplicably fascinated – as I am – with miniatures, you'll find this to be fun. I tried it with a few pictures I took in Holland a few summers ago when we were on vacation there. De Banjaard, where we stay, is already a bit like a miniature village (especially if you stand above it, near the ocean, looking down), so the photo process just exaggerates that. (I really like the windmill in the gadget at the left, as it is a "miniature" of a miniature.)

Here are a couple of photos from Deutschland, too. My sister-in-law, Heike, said that when she returned to Germany after her first trip to the United States she had the uncanny feeling that Europeans "live in dolls' houses." These photos magnify that miniaturization-effect.