by Bart King
A Matter of Perspective
There is a tower in Italy called the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Because it’s a cool tower, and because it’s leaning, tourists (like me!) enjoy taking pictures where it looks like someone is standing in front of the tower and “holding” it up. This works because of perspective. If the person in a photo stands close enough to the camera lens, whatever is in the background of the picture will appear to be smaller than the person...even if, in reality, the object in the background is much bigger than the person!
Of course, you can create this trick photo with all sorts of things, not just Italian towers! To get the trick to work, it’s important to have the person standing in the exact right spot. Be sure not to get too close with your camera, or else the photo will look unrealistic. Also, try not to show the palms of the person’s hands “touching” the object they are holding up.
You can also do this trick with things besides objects! For example, try creating a shot where it looks like someone is holding a tiny person in his or her hands (the person in the background needs to be in a dip or on a hill).
Bed Jumping!
In case you didn’t know, there are entire books and Web sites devoted to pictures of people jumping on beds. Many people do this in hotel rooms! For some reason, this makes it more fun. (Probably because people don’t usually get in as much trouble for jumping on the bed in their hotel room.)
Note: If you have no bed to jump on, a trampoline may be substituted. However, this is not as fun, because you’re SUPPOSED to jump on a trampoline!
Important Safety Note: Never, ever, ever jump on a bed that’s close to a window. EVER.
You can take bed-jumping shots using the timer on your camera, or you can have someone else take the picture. At first, the goofiness of being caught midair with your hair flying all over the place will be enough to keep you laughing. But soon you’ll want more challenges!
Clothing: If you have nice clothes, put them on for your shot. Seeing a well-dressed person bouncing in the air is funnier than seeing someone in a T-shirt and shorts. (Also, for some reason, wearing a shower cap in your photo is cool, especially if you strike a “flying superhero” pose with it!)
The Relaxed Pose: “Yeah, I’m just hanging out . . . in the air.”
Two-Bed Exchange: If there are two people and two beds, try to get a shot of each person flying over the other person’s bed.
The Cloud: Gather all the pillows you can find, and then jump up in the air while holding the pillows with your arms and hands. The point is to try to conceal your body behind the pillows as the photo is taken.
Photo from the Head: If you set up the camera at the head of the bed, the person can run and leap at the bed for an “Incoming!” type of shot.
PhotoShopped Freakazoids
I’ve got almost no computer skills, but even I can cut, resize, and paste stuff. And if you can do that too, try experimenting with some of these really weird photo tricks.
The Baby Head Switcheroo: While switching your mom’s head with your dad’s might be funny, there is NOTHING weirder than switching an adult’s head with a baby’s! After you cut and paste the heads, be sure to make the baby’s head larger and the adult’s head smaller. Spooky!
Upside-Down Face: Few things are as bizarre as clipping someone’s face, turning it around, and then pasting it back into their head. To top off this coolness, rotate the picture so that the face is looking at you normally, but the chin is at the top of the picture and the hair is at the bottom!
Upside-Down Features: This is a little tougher than clipping out an entire face. To do this, take a picture of someone smiling. Now take that photo and flip around the two eyes (individually) and the mouth. They should be in the same place, but upside down. Now take the photo and turn it so that the chin is at the top of the picture and the hair is at the bottom. It actually might look pretty normal—until you turn it around so that the head is right-side up. (Then it’s just FREAKY!)
Tacky Portraits
I just realized that I’ve had a bulletin board in my room my entire life. Bulletin boards are cool because I can use them to tack up photos, postcards, and stickers. But I’ve never actually tacked a bulletin on one!
Weird.
Anyway, have someone take a picture of you where you’re screaming in pain. (Fake pain, not real pain. What kind of book do you think this is?) Pretend you’re having a spear driven through part of your body. Hold your hands over that part of your body and have someone take your picture.
Now print up the photo. When you tack it to your bulletin board, you’re going to push the tack through the part of your body that you were holding in the photo. That way, it looks like the tack is actually causing you the discomfort!
Holiday Card
Some people mail cards to their family members and friends in December. If your family does this, try to convince your parents to use the following picture as the family portrait.
First, you have to pick the people who will cry in the picture. Don’t worry, they’re going to be faking it! If there are two kids in your family, the oldest one will cry. If there are four kids, the three oldest ones will all be crying. If you’re an only child, your dad or mom will cry.
Now, the idea for the picture is that you have hogged all of the [insert cool items here]. For example, let’s say that you have an older brother. And let’s also say that you have a pizza at your house. Wait until you get down to the last two pieces, and you’re ready for the photo. Grab one slice of pizza and get ready to eat it. But also grab the OTHER slice so that it’s clearly in your possession.
Now give the camera a smug little smile as you take a bite of pizza. While you do this, your older brother should be standing next to you, crying!
This idea can work with all sorts of things, not just pizza. For example, let’s say you have two kittens at home. Take a picture where you’re petting both of the kittens and looking smugly at the camera while your older brother cries. (You get the idea.)
Realistic Crying Tips: If you’re going to be the designated “crier,” do this before you take the photo: rub your face briskly with your hands so that your face is red. Be sure to squinch your eyes shut. And it helps if you’re actually making a crying sound (as in “Waaah!”) when the picture is taken. Trust me.
Tree Patch
The next time you’re walking around your neighborhood, look at the trees. (Crazy, I know!) See if you can find a tree that has a large bit of bark missing on its trunk. This can happen when branches are cut off, or just because of weird growth patterns.
Did you find one? If so, get some wrapping paper or patterned cloth. (The brighter and more colorful, the better.) You’ll also need some scissors, a pen, and maybe a staple gun. (A really good stapler could also work.)
Take your supplies and approach the bare patch on the tree trunk. Don’t be afraid—it’s just a tree!
Stretch the paper or cloth over the bare patch. Use your pen to trace the outline of the patch onto the paper or cloth. Then use the scissors to cut out the paper or cloth. Now hold it up to the bare patch. Fit the paper or cloth into place, and then staple it to the tree trunk!
Now step back. It should look like the bark has been stripped back to reveal the tree’s colorful center!
The “I’m Not Headless, I’m Neckless!” Shot
For both of these pictures, you’ll need two people and someone with a camera (like you!).
Buried in Sand!
For this photo, you need to be at the beach or some other mega-sandy spot where you can bury someone up to his or her neck without too much work. (And if you ARE at the beach, make sure to do this in a spot away from the incoming tide!)
After getting your volunteer properly covered in sand, stand on his “face” side with your camera. Now have the second person stand with his back to you and his feet on either side of the first person’s head. Have the second person take a half step back with each foot and bend over. Reaching down, the second person s
hould pretend to be grabbing the ears of the buried first person’s head.
As long as the bending person’s head isn’t visible, take the picture. The resulting photo will look as if someone lost his head and is bending down to pick it up!
To get the same effect another way, have your first person squat or kneel behind a bed or some other large piece of furniture. This person should have only his head (facing you) exposed. Your second person sits with his back to you NEXT to the person’s head. With one arm, he reaches over to grab “his” head with his hand.
Headless Bookends!
The setup for this picture requires you to set up a board or a shelf between two chairs (or sawhorses, or whatever). Two people will sit or stand so that their chins can comfortably rest on the shelf. These two people can stand anywhere from a foot to five feet apart, but closer is probably better.
Get some books and prop them up between the two heads! Once you have your “bookends” properly placed, step back. As you take the picture, try to frame it so that the bottom frame of the picture is the edge of the shelf. (That way, you won’t see the bodies of your bookends below.) But even if you can’t frame it perfectly, it’s no big deal—you can always crop the picture later!
Streeetch Shot!
Have a person lie down with his head at one end of a sofa. Have another person lie down so that his feet are at the other end of the sofa. Now cover the first person with a big blanket from the shoulders down. The blanket should leave only the feet of the other person uncovered. Snap away!
The Grand Finale!
This is a great picture, but it takes a certain amount of setup. For starters, you need two big people and one little person.
Got them? Next, it would be nice if all three people were wearing those uniforms that martial arts students wear—they’re generally called keikogi, or just gi for short. Anyway, your models don’t need to have on an official gi, but it would be nice. And if just the two big people have gis (or just the little person does!), that also works.
Now, think of the posture that karate instructors get into when they punch a board in half. In demonstrations, one person holds a board with both hands. Then the other person stands in front of the board and punches, kicks, or head butts the board, breaking it in half.
What you’re going to do is take a picture of that moment, but instead of feet or fists, you’re going to use a person’s head to break the board. So think about what that broken board looks like! Yep, it’s wood, and it’s broken in half.
What you need to do is find a short board like that and saw it in half! Use a vise or sawhorse, and ask for help if you need it. When you’re done, you’re ready for these steps:
A big person is going to pick up the little person.
The second big person is going to pick up the two pieces of the broken board and hold them together as if they weren’t broken at all.
The first big person is going to hold the little person like a battering ram, with the little person’s head pointing forward into the board.
The second big person will hold the boards at chest height while bracing himself for impact by spreading his legs and making a face.
The first big person will step forward and gently push the little person’s head against the broken board.
As the little person’s head pushes against the wood, the board will begin to “break.” This is when you take the picture! If possible, the big people should look as if the impact is tremendous. The little person can either grimace in pain or wave at the camera—whichever is funnier!
Deep Thoughts
You know what’s really fun? Thinking about the world around you! There are so many odd and interesting things in it, if we only take the time to notice them. In fact, I’ve heard that comedians often get good material just by standing on a street corner and watching people pass by.
Imagine you’re people-watching in New York. It’s winter, and snow starts falling to the ground. Wow! People come out of storefronts to look at the lights and the beautiful snow. Yep, there sure are a lot of people!
You’re already having fun, but maybe you could have more! So you roll up a snowball and throw it at your friend, sister, or father. If you’re lucky, that person will throw a snowball back at you. And if you can get enough people involved, pretty soon there will be a huge snowball fight going on!
How fun would it be to have a snowball fight in Times Square? REALLY fun. Good thinking!
Another fun thing to think about are life’s deep questions. Ever since you could talk, you’ve probably asked questions about the world around you using “who, what, when, where” and especially “why.” Your questions were so good that adults had trouble answering them! You know, like:
Who invented time?
What is the difference between moss and lichen?
When did the sea get salty?
Where did that baby come from?
Why is the sky blue?
And now that you’re older, you ask even tougher questions, such as: Can a bar of soap get dirty? Luckily, there are experts available to answer these difficult questions. But even experts like the mysterious person known only as “the Explainer” sometimes get asked questions he is unable or unwilling to answer. Like these!
Why do panda bear names (Ling Ling, Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan) always get doubled?
Is it possible to collect all the cookie dough in Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and actually bake cookies from it?
Why do all national anthems sound like European marching-band music?
If the elastic band on my underwear loses its spring, but the underwear is barely used, what should I do with it?
Let’s say that an astronaut on the way to Mars had a baby. If the father were of a different nationality than the mother, what would the citizenship of the baby be?
Would it be better if things were better, and worse if things were worse, or better if things were worse and worse if things were better?
How would the law punish Siamese twins if one of the twins committed murder without the other being involved? (Actually, “the Explainer” did sort of answer this one: “No one knows.”)
Brain Fun!
Go into a library or bookstore and ask, “Do you have any books about bookshelves?” This may blow the clerk’s mind. Or the clerk might be so impressed that he gives you a free copy of this book. (On the other hand, he might just say, “ALL of our books are on bookshelves”!)
Imaginary Dilemmas
Stretching your mind is incredibly fun. A great way to do this is to practice “imaginary dilemmas.” This is where you imagine a problem that forces you to make a difficult choice. The dilemma makes you think really hard about the best way to react! While these are fun to think about by yourself, it’s also interesting to discuss dilemmas with others.[14]
For starters, here’s one. Let’s say you could make a phone call to yourself at anytime in the past. The phone call will only last one minute. And to save time, let’s say that you don’t have to spend the whole minute trying to convince yourself that it’s not a crank call!
So, what would you say to yourself? I started thinking about this, and I came up with a list of all the different things I wanted to WARN my past self about.
Don’t eat more than one Flintstones vitamin a day.
If you wipe out on your face while waterskiing, the water will go up your nose and into your brain.
Unless you want a nice scar, don’t pet strange cats.
But then I asked a friend of mine what she would do in this dilemma. She thought for a moment and said, “I would just tell myself to have a happy life.”
You can imagine my surprise! “What? No warnings? Aren’t you even going to tell her where you live, or what your job is?”
She shook her head. “Just like anyone else, I need to learn from my mistakes. And if I tell myself what happens in the future, it will take the fun out of getting there.”
Wow. I never thought about it that way!
Thinking About Words!
Using words like “no”, “not,” or “nothing” twice in a sentence (Example: “I don’t have no money”) gives it the opposite meaning. (“So you DO have money!”). But what did basketball player Rasheed Wallace mean with this triple-negative: “I ain’t changing nothing for nobody”?