Diorama Technique for Dummies

I recently visited a museum and learnt about a new technique know as the “Diorama” technique. Simply put, it is about creating illusion!! Sounds interesting? Okay, but before we go further, have a look at the pictures below and try to identify what is common in them.

Yes, you are correct…..they all show the monuments, trees and other objects shot at real life locations. However, these are staged shots and the object/subject was physically not at the location. The subject is basically a scaled down replica of original and background is typically a picture which is arranged in such manner, that you get a feel that its real life size shot at a real location.

This is done using the “Diorama” technique. I thought let me take a shot at this technique with some things lying around at my place and here is what I got…..

Looks nice isn’t it? Yeah….it is quite a simple technique to start off with. Once I master the basic technique, I will experiment with different subjects and light sources – one for subject and another for background.

The trick is to setup the camera settings in such a way that the resultant picture gives a feel that the toy car is actually a parked near the mountain cliff.

Things I needed:
1) My Camera - which allows manual setting of Av (Aperture)
2) Red Toy Car
3) Scenic Backdrop – Complementing the subject (I used a 18 x 12 calendar photo of Dead Horse Point Mountain Range, Utah)
4) Small table or any place where the car and background can be setup

The settings:
1) Set the camera to Av (Aperture Priority) mode and set the aperture to f/4 – f/5.6.

2) Selection of aperture is critical for the kind of effect you get. I selected relatively large aperture so that the background is soft. You can experiment with small aperture values like f/8 – f/11 to get the car and background both in sharp.

3) Keep the car around 1 feet (12 inches) in front of the background (reduce the distance to increase the sharpness of background)

4) Keep both the background and car in uniform lighting, expose for the car and take the shot.

Well that's pretty much it. Experiment with the angle, elevation, light angle etc to get a good realistic shot.

Happy shooting !!