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I Teach Creatives
comments 11
@Smithies@Dermot The mountain is so far away that it basically stays the same size. In this example that seems to be Mt. San Antonio which is something like 15 to 20 miles away from the Hillcrest. So if the close image is say 15 miles away from the mountain, the far image is 3 blocks further away so about 15.3 miles. 15 miles to 15.3 miles is not a big enough change to make a dramatic difference.
The big difference is really the size of the building. So in the close image we are maybe 300 ft (90m) from the building then the far image which is 3 blocks away is something like 1800 ft (550m) away from the building. 300 ft to 1800 ft is a dramatic difference so the building gets WAAAAY bigger enough to cover the mountain from the close view.
For an extreme example think of the moon, even if you take a rocket and get a few miles closer to the moon, it won't appear any bigger. 238,900 miles away from the moon vs 238,895 miles away is basically the same.
The opposite extreme is holding your finger out in front of you (maybe half a meter away) and then bringing it right up to your eye (maybe 1 cm away) the difference there in distance is about 50x and so your finger now covers up everything in your vision, even huge mountains.
Anyways, all that to say is that you have to think about the changes in distance in percentages.
LESSON NOTES
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This lesson demonstrates how your distance from a subject dramatically alters perspective. I'll show you how standing close to an object creates a vast sense of space. Then, we'll move far back and zoom in to see how the scene becomes compressed and flattened, stacking the foreground, middle ground, and background on top of each other. Understanding this effect is crucial for controlling the feeling of depth in your compositions.
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How you frame a scene can either create deep space or compress it into flatness.
Standing close to an object makes the space behind it feel vast. But moving far back and zooming in squishes the foreground and background together, making distant mountains look like they are in the backyard.
I just learned this concept in a photograph tour I took while on vacation . The presenter explained if you want a shot of someone and a good view behind them, stand far back and zoom in. Thanks for reinforcing it!
I see a fair bit of valid questioning in the comments below like “how does knowing camera lenses relate to art”. Maybe we are conditioned by the age of film, but when I “see” things in my head, it’s through camera angles not human eyes. I know it differs from artist to artist but I’m not really interested in drawing what I can already see, but in what I imagine, which requires tilts and compression and weird angles and dramatic foreshortening. So this is super useful. It’s like a stepping stone to composition I guess
oh yes this gives us extra tools for compo, and indeed people living in a city must be more lost than those living in-the wilde (i lived all my life in cities and no I'm by the sea but I ca,t get out and walk about hence my conceptualizing problems i guess
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1mo
Thank you Lin. Indeed – it is meant to prepare us for composition.
Of the seven or eight "Elements of Art" with which artists compose, the two most difficult for those who don't know perspective are SPACE and FORM, and the most common composing act with those two are SHALLOW and DEEP, FLAT and THICK.
This is to prep our creative picture-makers and storytellers for composing images, but there is no single formulaic "answer" like "hide a mountain behind a building – you can reveal it later" or "put a zolly effect on that character's face and they'll seem like they are in turmoil." It's much more up the the artist. It's about what a picture-composer wants to do, and how they choose to use this. You are in touch with that.
I hope that in a coming course we'll take time to see how great storytelling artists have used this. It can be so inspiring!
Thanks for sharing.
The more of these videos I watch, the more I understand the eerie feeling I got when I was in California... See, I live in New York and here there isn't as much open space. You're never that far from any given thing. So that flatness you get, when you look at something from a distance, is less common... You could never look at a specific building like you are in this video from that far away and have so much emptyness in-between you and it and to the sides like that. The streets look so wide! Even when you look at something far away here, you always have something close to you, directly in your peripheral vision to contrast it. We kind of live in a permanent wide angle view here. There's no way in hell you'd see something so far and grand in the background like mountains, or I suppose the rivers or other skylines on the horizon, unless you specifically go sit on a dock or roof or something. Most of the time, a building a block or two away is gonna be, well, in the way.
No wonder everything constantly felt so far and distant and flat in a place like Pasadena, where you can see the mountains sitting flat against the sky. I kept telling my friend that the sky looked fake, like a painted movie set or something.
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1mo
Good observation Kai! I take it for granted. So Cal and New York. What a pair...
Basically something like this. Obviously is not precise, but is basically the same idea, right?
Brilliant! A picture tells a thousand words.
Thanks for sharing @Carlos Javier Roo Soto , it helped me a lot :D
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1mo
Carlos! Thank you for that. It should have been in the video, but there it is. You solved the illusion.
Thanks everyone in the comments to help me understand. Is not Marshall's fault, I'm just stupid.
Definitely not stupid. If you are not used to it, it takes more time. That is all.
@Smithies@Dermot The mountain is so far away that it basically stays the same size. In this example that seems to be Mt. San Antonio which is something like 15 to 20 miles away from the Hillcrest. So if the close image is say 15 miles away from the mountain, the far image is 3 blocks further away so about 15.3 miles. 15 miles to 15.3 miles is not a big enough change to make a dramatic difference.
The big difference is really the size of the building. So in the close image we are maybe 300 ft (90m) from the building then the far image which is 3 blocks away is something like 1800 ft (550m) away from the building. 300 ft to 1800 ft is a dramatic difference so the building gets WAAAAY bigger enough to cover the mountain from the close view.
For an extreme example think of the moon, even if you take a rocket and get a few miles closer to the moon, it won't appear any bigger. 238,900 miles away from the moon vs 238,895 miles away is basically the same.
The opposite extreme is holding your finger out in front of you (maybe half a meter away) and then bringing it right up to your eye (maybe 1 cm away) the difference there in distance is about 50x and so your finger now covers up everything in your vision, even huge mountains.
Anyways, all that to say is that you have to think about the changes in distance in percentages.
this along with Carlos' side view have to be my favourite explanations so far. I like having the option to draw from either Carlos' angle of view visual, and your percentage change in distance explanation! thank you for your awesome explanations.
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1mo
I'm going at these comments backward, so I saw Carlos' side view first, but this is great to see the front view analysis — and you did more research on it than I did. Thank you Anthony!
@Anthony Hernandez
Thanks, to quote you "holding your finger out in front of you" etc.
That highlights what happen when the lens is blocked.
So Zooming effectively blocks visibility by enlargening the object you zoom into.
So what's an similar example of moving up close ?
That's a great video, thanks.
Amazing views.
I'm not sure how to process what I'm seeing.
Should I be seeing and understanding by now?
Edit
Fun with a camera.
Form up close
Flat from Distance
It's not what I see, it's what the camera sees.
So how do I use this information?
i keep asking myself the same question : I'm an artist with a pencil not a camera, how does this relate to me? ok I get you are trying to bring us to see how to use perspective and proximity in a drawing to give a "gee we are really inside the action" feeling - but who cares about zoom lenses? ok yes I'm playing devil's advocate but I have a problem with this at this stage of my feeling spatiality around me
Hi @Dermot , I was writing up some takeaways for this lesson, and maybe my 3rd takeaway below could help answer your question.
Takeaways:
1) Showing an example of how depth in can be like an illusion.
- For example, when zooming in from a far distance, the building centre looks much bigger compared to the HillCrest sign. However, if we are physically standing close in front of the sign, it seems comparatively larger than the building centre.
2) At some point, we can be far away enough until the background looks flat (another illusion).
- The cars are so bunched together until the only reason we know which car is closer/further from us is because of overlapping.
- The mountain at the back looks like a mural/flat
- The building center looks flat too (it helps that we are looking at the building centre face-on and not from the side).
3) Appreciate how we can go outside and experience perspective unfold before our very eyes.
- In a way, experiencing perspective for ourselves is like a reference.
- Besides googling or using software for reference, we can physically experience the depth and perspective as we go about our day, and let it inspire us; even though our eyes can't zoom in like a camera.
- For example, I was (weirdly) expecting the mountain in this lesson to be a small mountain. Turns out, it was pretty big! I was so shocked that I had to watch this lesson twice.
- Having real-life experiences and seeing 'dramatic effects' like this could be a useful tool. I can imagine this would come in handy in situations like animating a character driving a car and approaching something in the distance.
4) Understand that there's a difference between zooming in from a distance versus close-up for both the subject AND the background.
Hope it helps :)
Once I was on a road-trip passing through New Mexico, we were driving towards a town that looked to be about 15-20 minutes away, but after 15 minutes the town wasn't any closer than it was before. It took something like 3 hours of driving in a straight line to finally get to the town, only the town was a city! It was very surreal at the time!
I wonder how this could be used in a drawing
Randy, if I recall correctly that illusion has nothing to do with perspective and more with the way the light gets reflected in the atmosphere. Is related to the mirage in a dessert phenomena. The same way some times the moon looks humongous in the sky but couldn't be that close without flooding one side with huge tides. Still, a cool effect to showcase on a panel about a story taking place on another planet...
in a drawing you'd need references, like you add a character in a landscape to inform the viewer of the scale? good question! as a comicbook fan I'd draw several panels alternating the view of the distant town tiny and unchanging and views of the face of you in the car, getting more zoomed in in each panel until we see the black center of your eyes, and bubbles saying: "it doesnt get bigger! I'm not getting closer! " something like that to contrast the feeling of unchange
Mind blowing video. What baffles me most is that the further away you get the bigger the mountain appears.... At least in relation to the other things in the photo. But surely it should get smaller the further away you are?? I feel like I'm getting the flatness thing, but it's the sizes that confuse me.
remember we zoom in! we just dont get further away. and yes this is a hard one: why the hell are we using a camera when we are pencil and paint people?
