Toy Quartz Mountain?

OFAI photography faculty member Ben Long snapped this picture of Quartz Mountain during the last Fall Arts Institute weekend. It looks like a model version of the resort, but it's not! Not only that, there's no post-production or doctoring of the image. Ben explains:

The photo was created with a special type of lens called a tilt/shift. You can tilt and slide different parts of the lens to either correct perspective, or throw depth of field way out of whack.

When we see something with really shallow depth of field, we immediately assume it's small, because when you look at something up close, you don't see a lot of depth of field. So, by compressing the DOF to a thin slice across the middle, our brain interprets the resulting image as a miniature.

 I just climbed up behind the amphitheater with that lens. There's no post-production on that image. You can also shoot video through it, which is cool.