My cousin - David Itzcovitz - went to Israel last month and he took a series of photos, which he then processed to give this strange look. The process he mimicked in After Effects is called tilt-shift and is usually achieved by using a tilt-shift lens (lensbaby). This puts the focal plane at a strange angle to the film and as a result, you get this strange depth of field effect which makes big things seem like miniatures.

He faked this by making a gradient mask and using a defocus in these areas. A little bit of over sharpening and over saturation completes the look, all fInished of with a little pan and scan move in FCpro to add some dynamicism.

It is quite tricky to shoot with a tilt-shift lens, and just as tricky to fake it in post-production.He really has done a fantastic job with this, as I think you will agree...

You can view more of David's work on his Facebook profile here.