I'm a big fan of Tilt Shift photography and love the effect that it creates. I have experimented with 'Fake' Tilt Shift photography using digital manipulation in Photoshop but have not tried any 'real' techniques with proper lenses ... yet.

Producing a fake miniature tilt shift firstly requires the right subject shot from the right angle, the best I have been able to achieve so far using Photoshop is a fake miniature beach. With a high viewpoint, pumped up saturation and a narrow angle of focus I created the following:

I thought it would be really cool to be able to take a quick snap while out on location, apply some fake tilt shift effects and then instantly upload it to the online communities that I'm involved with (flickr or twitpic etc). So to do this we need an Apple iPhone (ideally the 3Gs with 2048x1536 resolution) and an application called TiltShift which is currently £1.19 in the iTune Store. With the app you can take a pic or load a pic from the camera roll and apply the area of focus, drag with your fingers on the screen and apply the saturation etc.

I stumbled upon a great shot taken by one of my flickr friends, hedgewytch (@hedgewytch on twitter) when she was in Barcelona recently at Parc Guell (Gaudi) ...

I applied quite a high level of saturation and quite a harsh outer blur, and I think it makes for quite an interesting miniature with the people resembling models. I think this app has legs and I'm looking forward to taking my own 'high level' shots and uploading some live tilt shift miniature fakes :)

Original photo credit goes to Hedgewytch with her kind permission.