OddJobber wrote:
That's where I have a problem with these. Shot with a wide angle and fairly close, I don't want to see parallel verticals. Looking up at the structure, my mind expects to see converging lines but my eyes say that's not happening. In brief, I would do less PC.
Schroeder's cat anyone?
I have a different experience. My mind expects to see parallel verticals. I have a theory, based on experience, that the sides of that building actually DO NOT converge.
Try this experiment. Sitting in your room, look at the walls, window trim, door frames. Do the vertical edges seem to converge? If you tilt your head up, do they converge even more?
Now do the same with your camera. I'll bet that when you snap a pic with your camera tilted up, the vertical lines converge. And, when you look at the resulting image, your mind cannot compensate the way it does when observing the actual physical environment.
Similarly, when you tilt your head left or right, do things look crooked? Or, do the horizontal lines seem to remain level? However if your camera is not level left to right, the horizon will appear off and sloping in images you take. Horizontal perspective, (converging horizontal lines) in images -- ARE compatible with our mind's interpretation of reality -- as long as the horizon (whether visible or non) is level.
For architectural and real estate photos, we strive for "realistic" results that more closely match our mind's interpretation of the scene. For other photographic genres, converging verticals and crooked horizons may be appropriate and contribute to the composition and dramatic effect.
And, as I stated in a previous post here, converging verticals in architectural photos are sometimes okay. The OP's SOOC #1 is a good example. For me, the converging verticals are okay, even good, for that subject, except for the light pole on the left side that triggers my feeling of "unreality". Crop out or clone out the light pole, and I'm fine with that image.
As Schrödinger will affirm, perspective lines both converge and they don't.