The ability to use perspective in photography is a fine art.  What is it exactly and how can we use perspective to tell a story with our pictures?  The spatial relationship between objects in a photograph is perspective.  We use perspective as our point of view in order to create a sense of dimension.  

There are several ways to use perspective in photography. 

One Point Perspective:   When you take a picture using one perspective you need a vanishing point and parallel lines to create the illusion of depth. A perfect example is taking a picture of a road or a bridge with the vanishing point at the horizon.

Two Point Perspective:  An example of two point perspective is taking a picture of the corner of a building.  Lines from either side of the building's corner lead your eye to the edges of the picture.  

Three Point Perspective:  An example of this is taking a picture straight up of a city scape.  By doing this you get a horizontal vanishing point from each corner of the buildings and a vertical vanishing point at the top of the buildings.

Forced Perspective: By using optical illusion, you can make things appear different than they actually are!  An example is the classic "holding the moon" photo, or "holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa" photo.

Today try using a different perspective than you normally do. Try shooting straight up from below, as I did in my sample photograph, or straight down from above!  You might want to try forcing your perspective, or trying a one, two or three point perspective.