The incredible shrinking cities

(Source: Dailymail)

You would be forgiven for thinking they are just model toys, but these are in fact some of the world's greatest cities transformed into miniature urban playgrounds using nothing more than a little spot of camera wizardry.

Photographer Ben Thomas, 31, has been dubbed the 'Cityshrinker' after developing a novel technique which he uses to reduce sprawling metropolises like New York, London, Tokyo and Paris to mere pint-sized proportions.

Mr Thomas, 31, from Melbourne, Australia has clocked up an incredible 77,800-air-miles - almost enough to go around the planet twice - on his quest to miniaturise as many of the world's cities as possible.

Ben uses a technique called tilt shift where he carefully sets the depth of field on his camera to make large objects look much smaller than they actually are.

'It's a playful effect,' said Ben. I find the reaction goes from curiosity to recognition to sentimentality and wonder. I've seen people try to pick out places they've lived or visited in their travels.

'My photos are about giving the viewer a new look at something they're already familiar with, so there's often a connectedness there.'

Explaining how he achieves his technique for reducing cities to tiny sizes he added: 'It's basically an optical illusion that relies primarily on manipulation of the depth of field.

'There are a lot of considerations besides this though that contributes to the success of an image, such as perspective and distance, framing, colour and subject.

'For this technique to be really successful, there are so many factors involved that all need to align. This could be weather, lighting and air quality, even the numbers of people or vehicles in shot.

'You don't have the luxury of setting up in a studio, so the biggest challenge is timing and having the patience to wait for things to fall into place.