Van Gogh Tilt Shift

There are some fantastic examples of tilt shift photography all over the internet, making everyday scenes from the world look like tiny replica models or toy sets.  It is a fairly simple technique, though hard to judge and execute perfectly even using Photoshop (you can even achieve similar effects with built in focus sliders that Instagram has within the app itself).

The idea is to tweak an image’s colour and depth of focus (see tutorial here for more of an explanation) to achieve the desired effect.  When the same technique was applied to works of art, that’s paintings and not photographs, it really caught my eye.

The tilt shift technique has been applied to some classic works of art by Vincent van Gogh, transforming even the most recognisable of his masterpieces into something new.  By adjusting the focus of the painting (presumably much to the annoyance of van Gogh!) it draws out key features and brings to life aspects of the image you may not have noticed before.

Some elements that were deliberately painted as background features by van Gogh are now brought out so that we see them as the main feature.

Wonderful stuff.

These are just some of my favourites from the set that has been manipulated, but there is a whole tilt shift collection to see over on Art Cyclopedia.