Spring Showers on Ponte Vecchio, Florence

Photograph Copyright ©2013 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

Concept: Depth (diluting depth); Perspective (tonal); Perspective (colour); Perspective (sharpness); Muted colours (contemplative)

Description: The presence of historic Florence is immediately felt due to the downplay perspectival clues.

• linear perspective - convergence of lines decreased using the zoom facility
• tonal perspective - diffused lighting lowers the difference between foreground and background contrast
• colour perspective - the lack of bright colours as worn by the pedestrians (by fortunate circumstance) and muted by lighting conditions, causes the foreground elements to recede, while the bright golden orb atop the Duomo appears to advance, compressing the viewing planes together. 
• sharpness - outlines of distant buildings are only slightly less sharp

Title: --

Orti Farnesiani's Terrace, Palatine Hill, Rome

Photograph Copyright ©2012 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

Concept: Depth (strengthening depth); Perspective (aerial); Perspective (colour); Perspective (tonal); Diagonal lines

Description: Taken from a little nook on Palatino in Orti Farnesiani, this scene successfully incorporates depth-enhancing cues. Multiple interconnected planes: the garden wall on the right; the edge of a Farnesiani pavilion framing the left; the sharply-lit tree trunk; the cypress behind it; the pine in the centre; the terrace balustrade; the temples lining Via Sacra of Foro Romano beyond, and Il Vittoriano in the distance (on the left) are bathed in strong directional light

Aerial perspective (from atmospheric haze), colour perspective (warmer hues in the foreground, cooler hues in the background) and tonal perspective (higher contrast at the front, decreasing as distance increases) are at play. Viewing lines are directed in zig-zagging diagonals to the image frame, creating a feeling of dynamic energy.

Title: Hidden Terrace

02.10 Perspective

Perspective is the appearance of objects arranged in space, from the viewpoint of the observer. It is one of the defining characteristics of Renaissance art, distinguishing it from the late-medieval Gothic art which preceded it, and one of the reasons why this project on visual composition began.

Optics presents distant objects as being comparatively smaller than identical ones nearby, and yet, our brain is able to understand them as being small and yet full-scale simultaneously. Multiple identical points arranged into two lines equidistant from each other; for example, milestones on either side of a straight road, will appear to get closer to each other (converge) as we travel further away from them, even though we know they remain the same distance apart. This is the perceptual phenomenon of "scale constancy".

We should have a conscious knowledge of the perspectival clues our eyes recognise when comprehending depth, as a necessary first step to being able to control the feeling of depth in an image.

Perspectival clues

1. Linear perspective
   Two or more parallel lines converge or imply convergence at a distant vanishing point. This applies vertically as well as horizontally, but the latter is easier for the eye to accept.
2. Diminishing perspective
   A special instance of linear perspective, where objects of known scale have aspects in inverse proportion to their distance from the viewer e.g. a single row of trees receding into the distance.
3. Aerial perspective
   Contrast and colour tone diminish as distance increases due to diffusion by atmospheric haze.
4. Colour perspective
   Air absorbs warmer-hued light (longer wavelengths) than colder-hues; we perceive warmer colours as advancing and cooler colours as receding.
5. Tonal perspective
   As a result of our reality-exposure to atmospheric diffusion, we perceive higher contrasts as being closer to us and lower contrasts as farther away.
6. Sharpness
   Diffusion of light due to atmospheric haze makes the outlines of distant objects less sharp.