Light — Science & Magic, 6th Edition

REVEALING SHAPE AND CONTOUR 79

5.4

Although this photograph is a flat, two-dimensional representation of the scene, we perceive depth in it.

each other. at, however, is, as you can see, not the case in the picture. Like

the railroad tracks we discussed earlier, these lines converge at a point on an

imaginary horizon. is distortion gives the brain a strong visual clue that it

is seeing length, width, and depth.

Manipulating Distortion

Within certain limits, we can increase and decrease the amount of perspec-

tive distortion in a photograph. is means that we can control the sense of

depth our pictures give to viewers.

Controlling the degree ...