Exercise: Focal lengths and different viewpoints

For this exercise, I did not venture very far - the primary subject is a statue, in Braintree, of a young boy holding a shell with sea lions around the base, sculpted by John Hodge.  The statue was commissioned by W J Courtauld in 1937.  In the background is St Michael's Church.

I endeavoured to try and match the size of the subject in both photographs.  I took the photos using my 24-105mm lens.  This allowed me to, exagerate the effect of the differences in perspective caused by changing the focal length and re-positioning the camera.

The first photograph, below, was shot at 105mm focal length.  This gives a reasonably natural look, though the perspective is somewhat flattened and very little can be seen of the church in the background.

In the second shot, below, I moved in close in order to be able to have the statue of a similar size to the previous shot.  The effect is quite staggering, in particular with the extreme compression of the background emabling the whole of the church steeple to be seen as well as the distortion of the subject due to the proximity of the lens.  Considerably more of the surroundings can be seen and it is much clearer to the viewer that the subject is part of a larger fountain and that, in the background, there is a church.