John Steiner zero’s in on three tools that shape visual space in photography; perspective, depth and scale. Perspective provides an accurate impression of the height, width, depth, and position of subjects in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point. Immediately my mind went to this photo I took from the Lincoln Memorial, looking across to the Washington Monument and its reflection at dusk in December, 2006.

John comments that though the tools sound technical, “they are incredibly intuitive once you look for them, and you’ll likely find you’ve been using them all along.” That certainly is true of the photo above. I looked out and said, OMG, take this picture while you can!
Depth in photography means the image creates an illusion of three dimensions. Below, a beautiful clear summer day at Crater Lake National Park provided this picture perfect image. Another “right place, right time” moment.

Scale is helpful to show the relative size or dimension of a subject. This huge rock on Orcas Island, WA might have seemed just a big bolder, even with the trees in the background. I decided adding a known item – my water bottle – would provide a clue to just how big this thing was!















You had a beautiful sunset for the Washington Monument. And the Orcas Island photo is so crisp. It looks like a beautiful place.
Thank you, Dan. Orcas is one of the islands in the San Juan archipelago of Washington State. It’s beautiful!
And with all the hoopla about the reflecting pool, I just had to take us all back to quieter times.🤗
Interesting, educational, and yes, intuitive. The Washington Monument, mirrored in the Reflecting Pool, reminded me of the mess “you-know-who” has made of it (among other things!). Sigh.
Thats one of the reasons I chose this photo!
Beautiful images. Clearly you caught the Reflecting Pool before the, umm, “repairs.”
Thank you, Paul. It was such a breathtaking moment, I wanted to remind us all of quieter times!
Beautiful photos, Lindy. It took me a while to spot the water bottle 🙂
Thank you, Sofia. It does sort of disappear under the massive bolder!