Illustrating Visual Space

This exercise was intended to focus attention on the relationship of images to each other within a frame. Through experimenting with 3 images within a square frame it was possible to explore the different meanings communicated by different relationships.

First I sketched the 3 images: a boy running, a tree and a building and scanned them into the computer. Then I decided that they needed a bit more structure to make them stand out within the square format, so I filled in some of the line drawings with black tone. Then I moved them around within the frame.

This was the basic image, all horizontals and verticals - a strong narrative is comminicated.  The boys is running past the church towards the tree. The question is why?

Church important in frame, but the eye is drawn to the boy running away from the church, towards the tree.

Although the tree implied a horizon, the addition of a line further grounded the boy and the tree within the frame.

Although the tree is centre of frame and prominent, the boy is running and therefore draws your eye across the frame. 

The addition of a wobbly horizon implies a rural context.

This time I clustered the elements together, smaller in the frame, the boy still seems to be running from the Church,

The addition of a horizon on the same line as the boys foot implies that he is heading off beyond the horizon towards something we can't see.

the movement of the horizon higher in the frame gives the boy somewhere to run.

The small tree gives the church a feeling remoteness.

My two sons found this image scary, the boy is huge in the frame but perhaps because he appears slightly out of focus, we are drawn beyond him and this implies that his own attention is in the church.

The elements pushing against the edge of the frame adds a slightly disturbing dynamic.

The tree is the foreground gives the boy something to run towards, he now appears as if he's running to the tree and the viewer.

The horizon re-inforces the movement from the top right to the bottom left of the frame.

Once the verticals and horizontals are removed, a whole new dynamic emmerges, the church the tree take on a more threatening, looming quality, and the boy looks more vulnerable

I played with adding some lines to ground the elements, the boy now looks as if he's about to trip over  a stream. not very succesful image! 

Turning the Boy on his head as well enhances the feeling of chaos. The tree and Church are leaning away from the boy, they almost seem to be spinning giving this image a ' dream-like' quality

The scale of the boy and the fact that the tree and the church are looming over him and leaning into him, make him look very vulnerable - the dynamic is of tension.

This is my favourite image, it's pushing against the side of the frame, and the boy is almost lost in the foliage, but he's still important in the frame. The church and the tree are making a cross shape and seem connected to each other, they are imposing on his space as if he needs to move quickly, or 'something' is going to happen to him.

This was a very useful exercise, it shows how decisions about the positioning of elements, their relative scale, their space that they inhabit all have a strong part to play in the overall dynamic of the image. It's not surprising but this was useful in terms of analysing the effects. It will be a useful reference for compositional decisions later.