Fisheye Fun

Before I continue with the sketch gallery I would like to post this. During my last trip to Athens Alex's dad Andonis (pictured in all his self portrait magesty) had recentlly purchased a new camera. Now he has some pretty nifty kit anyway so why the need for another? Especially an analogue camera in this the rapidly improving digital age. Well the answer is above. The type of lens used to take this shot is called a fish-eye lens. The reason being that it makes evereything look like you are the fish in a bowl and all the distortion of the outside world that goes with living inside of a glass sphere. Now at first glance it may seem like some cheap photoshop gimmick and I am sure that a similar looking effect can be acheived but the differences are large and twofold. Firstly the fisheye provides a huge depth of field. This means that the vast majority of any picture will all be in focus from nose hairs to horizon. Secondly the lense allows for a 170 degree field of view, grabbing and compressing more view than you can see right now and all in focus. Even wedding photos could potentially become interesting with the aid of this gizmo. So some company or other has finally produced an instamatic camera with a fixed fish-eye which uses normal 35mm film and only cost £40. Pretty damn cool. Add that one to the Christmas list.
As I mentioned this picture is a self portrait of Alex's dad. For those of you who have never met him or seen other photos it must be an interesting way to see somebody new for the first time. He also sent me some others taken of amongst others myself, Alex and Daphne. I wil save the others for another time.
Some famous if not particularly innovative uses of the fish-eye lens appear on the covers of Mr.Tambourine man by The Byrds and Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band for those of you who are interested.