An interesting and, as it turns out, rather fortuitous misunderstanding of a Street Photography Challenge occurred for me a couple of weeks ago. The theme was “perspective”. Gosh, I have used the word perspective many times in commenting. But even after I read the description of the theme and looked at the many excellent photos, I knew I did not really understand precisely what perspective was in photography. Fantastic. I can use that as a topic for a blog. Even more fantastic is that the types of perspective are relatively straightforward concepts. I rarely find anything simple to understand in photography.

Perspective is, first, the spatial relationship between objects in a photo. It is what allows us to create the sense of three dimensions in a two dimensional print. It is also our point of view and how we place the plane of the camera relative to the subject.

There are five types of photographic perspective.

Linear

In order to have linear perspective, you need parallel lines and one or more vanishing points which creates the illusion of depth in a photograph.

One point perspective is the road picture we have all taken that has a vanishing point at the horizon.

Two-point perspective occurs, for example, when you photograph the corner of a building.

This image has three points of perspective. There are parallel lines on each side of the building that are moving toward implied vanishing points. There is also the 1 point perspective with the cross walk lines moving toward the building.

Three-point perspective is when, for example, you have a horizontal vanishing point emanating from each corner of a building and vertical vanishing point at the top of a building.

Overlapping perspective

Overlapping perspective is when the natural layers of your photo create depth and dimension.

Diminishing scale perspective

Diminishing scale perspectives utilizes how we see the world naturally. We are accustomed to seeing things closer to us as larger and things father away as smaller. For this reason, photos that have a foreground, middle ground and background with sizes diminishing with the distance, produces a feeling of depth.

Forced perspective

Forced perspective is a striking optical illusion that makes objects appear nearer or farther, smaller or larger than they actually are. In a photo the objects must be in the same horizontal plane. This relational technique is used in juxtaposition. The unfortunate side of forced perspective can occur when we have lack of separation. For example, a tree in the background can appear to be growing out of your subject’s head.

Atmospheric perspective

The final type of perspective is atmospheric perspective. On foggy mornings, objects that are farther away look lighter and have more muted colors. In photography, reducing contrast, color and sharpness can produce a feeling of depth because of our experience with atmospheric perspective.

Dedicated to Street

Five Types of Perspective in Photography