Construction workers move like ants and cranes work like toy models — this is the world created by Australian photographer Keith Loutit. He speaks about making molehills out of mountains.
The “too-perfect” nature of Singapore, in which local people live in high-rise communities from where they literally look down on the world, motivated photographer Keith Loutit’s ground-breaking photographic technique.
His tilt-shift style of photography miniaturises an urban world that he says is becoming neat and model-like. He is drawn to city sprawls in Singapore and Sydney, where he captures the transformation of vacant lots into high rises and documents the urban community.
“I’m certainly no expert on architecture and design, but I think from a photographer’s perspective it’s such an important part of the way people live,” he says. Having spent some time in Singapore, Loutit says the “too-perfect” nature of the city, in terms of the architecture and central planning, forced him to capture it using this photographic style that miniaturises its subject. “In Singapore the urban land authority has done an incredible job of making the city look like this perfect community,” he says.
His tilt-shift technique creates a trick of the eye, affecting the way we see large and small subjects. The style stimulates a very shallow depth of field that is common when photographing small things.
“Even people who are not photographers understand that if a subject has so much in the fore-ground and rear-ground out of focus, it actually tricks the eye into believing it’s a small subject rather than a large subject. It’s hard to shake, even if you’re a photographer or understand depth of field. It tricks the brain,” he told Architecture & Design.
Loutit has been commissioned by TV1 to shoot a summer campaign using his time-lapse photography. This technique, in which photographs are run in sequence to create a film effect and motion is dramatically expedited, enhances the toy model appearance.
And while his work has predominantly been documentary, Loutit is looking to shoot for architectural, construction and design companies to trace the change of buildings over time.
It is the ordinary “instead of the extraordinary” that inspires this Australian photographer — men on construction sites, vast high-rise sprawls and intricate details on a well-recognised building such as Sydney’s Opera House. See Keith Loutit’s time-lapse creations here?
www.keithloutit.com
