Gallery: some perspectives on Whitstable

What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions.

Margaret Atwood

When people first started to paint, they created striking but visually flat forms. The animals they reproduced on the walls of their caves looked as two dimensional as the surface on which they were painted.

And so it continued for thousands of years, although the ancient Greek and Roman artists did use shading, overlapping and foreshortening to give some indication of depth. It was only in the 15^th century, during the Renaissance, that artists discovered how to use a single, stationary viewpoint where all parallel lines converged at a vanishing point on a horizon line. Now paintings could convey an illusion of depth despite their two dimensional form. Scenes appeared more realistic and the viewer was drawn into the spaces.

Creating depth in photography

As photographers we too are trying to convey three-dimensional scenes and objects on a flat two-dimensional surface, whether paper or screen, and we can use similar tricks to those of the Renaissance artists. Lines that converge on a point close to the horizon (‘leading lines’) create a sense of distance, as do receding objects. By including objects whose size is known to the viewer (human figures, animals, vehicles etc. etc.) we use their relative placing within the frame to also indicate distances as well as providing a sense of scale. If a person appears tiny within a landscape the viewer recognises immediately that the landscape is vast. If a person appears large but the objects behind them, while known to be bigger, appear smaller, the viewer understands that those objects are far away.

For John’s Lens Artists theme of ‘Perspective, Depth, and Scale’ I want to show how we use certain tools to create that sense of distance. I’ve taken a slightly different approach to John however. I feel that while perspective and scale are tools, depth is what we achieve when we use those tools well.

I’ve drawn my permitted six examples (yes, I am sticking to the rule this week, if you don’t count my feature photo!) from our very recent stay on the Kent coast in south east England in the charming town of Whitstable. We spent our time strolling by the sea and around the still-working harbour. It was only when I returned and saw this week’s theme that I realised that I had exactly taken the sort of shots I wanted to use as examples in those locations.

So here they are …

Framing a scene adds depth as well as interest

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Foreground figures have the same effect

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As do foreground objects

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Meanwhile very small figures in the background create a sense of distance as well as scale, and leading lines take a viewer on a journey through a scene from front to back

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Repetition of the same or similar objects that appear to get smaller as they recede tells the eye that some are further away, and again create a leading line for the viewer to follow into the image

I’ve visited Whitstable several times; these photos were all taken in June 2026