I might be way off here, but here's what I always assumed. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just what I've always guessed, but haven't really thought too

I might be way off here, but here's what I always assumed. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just what I've always guessed, but haven't really thought too hard about it.... I think Tilt Shift photography doesn't make the subject look like a miniature, but rather makes the photo look like a photo of a miniature. When photographing a miniature, the subject is so close that you have a much narrower depth of field and you end up with thin slices of the miniature subject being in focus. I think that this was probably more common in the days of film than digital photography. In other words: the photos of miniatures look like that because of limitations in the photography process, whereas tilt-shift is emulating those limitations at a macro scale.