The Art of photography

Principles:MakingDesignWork

Perspective

Perspective,bymakingobjectsappear

to

shrinkwithdistanceandbymaking

parallellinesseemtoconvergetoward

a

pointonthehorizon,createstheillu-

sionofthree-dimensionalspace

in

a

pho-

tograph.Itsuppliesclues

—

objectsize,

lineconvergence,

texture-thatthebrain

interpretsasindicationsofdepth

Whileacamera

isconstructed

to

pro-

duceperspectiveautomatically,apho-

tographercaneithercallonthissortof

depictionorsuppressit.Thestraight-on

shot

on

theprecedingpage,forexample,

givesascantimpressionofdepthbe-

causeitcontains sofewlinesthatcon-

vergetowardthehorizon But

thephoto-

graphsonthesepagesrelyheavilyon

convergence

Aperceptionofdepthun-

derliestheirvisualimpact

Thelandscapeat

leftflauntsperspec-

tiveclues:therelativesizesofhouse

andfence,theconverginglinesofthe

fenceandutilitywires,andthelossof

detailinthetextureofthegrass,fence

andtreelimbsastheyrecede

fromthe

foreground Inthepictureofthesunset-

tingbehindNewYorkharbor

(right),it

isnotlinebutcolorthatestablishesclues

todepthand

perspective Themostin-

tensecolor—thesunitself—drawsthe

eye

towardthevanishingpointonthe

horizon,establishingitasthepictures

centerofinterest

Otherclues helpestablishperspec-

tiveAfingerofreflectedsunlightpoints

directlyatthe

vanishingpoint,andtwin

pilingsintheforegroundtargetthesun

between

them

One

finalclueanchors

thepicture'sinterestatthehorizonline

—

thedistantimageoftheStatueofLiberty,

pokinguptotheleftofthesun.