Creating Depth in Art, Film, and Photography

Although 3D imagery is becoming more prevalent in blockbuster films, the fact still remains that depth is something established in 2D imagery.

A recent post on zevendesign.com outlined 8 pain ways to establish depth it art, photography, and film.

• Atmosphere 
• Color
• Linear Perspective
• Light
• Shadow
• Solidarity
• Focus
• Movement

We've all read or watched something that teaches us about creating depth, but the examples they used in this post were so beautiful and unique I found it necessary to share.

1. Atmosphere

The man stands holding an axe in front of the misty forrest that slowly fades off in to the distance. This form is depth is created by having the background less clear then where you want the focus to be.

2. Color

Maybe I'm just a color kind of guy, but I find this form of depth to be the most interesting. The repetition in color palette reveals some of the science behind creating depth.  

The opposite is also true with a white background.

3. Linear Perspective

Linear Perspective is probably an obvious one and usually one of the first ways we thing of creating depth. It's what your second grade art teacher called "the vanishing point". All of the material in your drawing is aimed at one focus point.

4. Light

Obviously if you point your light on to what's in the foreground the attention is going to focus there. But in this post they used light to show that when something is lit in the background, you get a very interesting effect. 

 In the picture below I feel pulled in to the scene. That path is beckoning for some quality strolling down.

The Light here is used in a much more metaphorical way. The focus in this painting ties in to religious beliefs on where our focus should be in life. Although we may first look at the man, that is not where the attention is pulled in the painting. 

5. Shadow

One the flip side of the last one, attention can be brought to what is not in the light by using shadows.

6. Solidity 

Solidity refers to the level of detail in different parts of the image. Solidity differs from focus in that it is usually used in cartoons and paintings. With this technique, the foreground has more attention detail then what is in the background.

7. Focus

Focus is the most common way to achieve depth in film and photography. It can also be achieved in computer art and animation, as they show in a couple of these examples:

 And hence forth the term "Bokehlicious" was created. 

8. Movement

Movement is another common technique used in film in photography. When your subject is on the move, moving the camera with them can blur stationary elements and bring focus to the subject. 

Which is also a synthetic effect I used in our promotional poster to give depth to the room:

The opposite of this (stationary subject with a moving background) is another way to achieve this effect. (Shout out to that time we made Cracked).

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Of course, many of these examples are not limited to their exemplified use. Often times, it is the combination of several of these techniques that create depth in a scene. It's up to you to decide which ones will fit your image for the right effect.

Look at it from this Perspective

Although the phrase "forced perspective" sounds intimidating, chances are you've already utilized it in your photography. If not, you've definitely seen it used before.

These two pictures use forced perspective in it's most basic form. One subject stands very close to the camera, while the other rests much farther back. This creates the illusion that the subject in the foreground is much larger than the background subject. This exaggerated size is something we love to play with (especially around historic sites).

Some examples of forced perspective in photography:

Still, forced perspective is not confined to photography. I stumbled across this walk through while researching. A small, independent group of filmmakers wanted to create a scene that involved a man discovering a huge block of ice. Unfortunately, there was no room in the budget to create a 6' by 6' block of ice. Not only that, but the weight of said block would be completely impractical; especially since they wanted to load it into a truck. 

So what did they do? Just a little forced perspective magic. First, they got a block of ice. However, instead of the 6' by 6' dimensions they were originally pulling for, the filmmakers settled on a 7" by 7" ice cube. 

Here's the little guy in front of the green screen: 

 And here it is on set:

Then, using the minds of master illusionists, the filmmakers came up with a floor plan that would make the ice block look much larger than reality. Apparently, 216 feet was the magic number.

The floor plan:

Here's a still of the achieved look:

I'll embed the video here but I'm warning you now: it looks low budget. It's not actually very good. But, they did achieve the look they were going for through the use of forced perspective. 

Here it is:

Although primarily used in low budget movies where CGI and other special effects are unavailable, big blockbusters too have been known to incorporate the use of good "old-fashioned" forced perspective. I use the word "old fashioned" very loosely. Nowadays, although it's done physically, moving cameras have caused things to get a little more complicated. 

Take for instance this example from The Lord of the Rings:

So although the rigs are getting more and more complicated, this example proves that CGI doesn't have to be the answer. What I like about the moving rig method for moving camera shots is that although the machinery is semi-involved, the idea of forced perspective remains a simple constant.