Exercise 14 - Illustrating Visual space



This exercise involved cutting out black and white pictures of a tree, a child running and a building and photocopying them at different sizes. We then had to create a representational image using the distortion of scale.

I chose to print out these images in black and white then cut out different sizes of each element. I then used my camera to record the positioning of each element (which was easier than sticking them down and meant I had more flexibility).

 

There was really strong visual difference between the images despite them containing the same images.

 

When the figure was smaller than the other elements it makes most sense to me in that logically a building/ tree would be larger than a child,  however the other elements were quite imposing and make the child seem almost vulnerable.

 

When the elements were positioned at an angle to each other they almost look like something has happened to cause the disarray for example as if a hurricane or storm has turned things up side down.

The images which had a lot of horizontal and vertical images in relation to the frame seemed most realistic as they are how you would normally visually see them. This gives them a certain feeling of strength and there is a sense of order to the images. 

 

  

 

When I tried making the child larger than the house the image didn't seem to make sense, particularly in the image where I placed him in the background.

I added a horizon line to a few of the images which again helped to ground the elements and give a feeling of order.



 

 

 

 

Very large building and small tree - doesn't quite work for me as the tree couldn't be distiguished as such on such a small scale.

Looks like a hurricane or something has knocked things off course.

 

Horizon line lower than building - boy could almost be at a minature toy world.

 

A sense of disorder as tree seems to be falling on the boy and building.

 

 

I think this is my favourite image. The boy seems to be running away from something with the building and tree in the background. The composition is balanced and your eye is drawn through the image.

 

I then decided to do a bit more work on this exercise in photoshop and kept the same boy image but selected a different building and tree.

 

 

This was an interesting exercise and does really make you think about how the success of an image can be based on the relative positioning of each element. I think I'll certainly start to consider this within my work and how certain placings can help to lead a viewer through an image.

I also think that depending on the desired effect a number of these images could be classed as successful and it would depend on the context they are placed.