Visual Plane
every picture states the point it is correct from
The collection

Every essay — page 8

Page 8 of 8, continuing through the fields in the same order.

What survives Constructing a view Where to stand Surfaces that are not flat The other systems Light and mirrors Mirrors that are not cameras Measuring from one picture Through water and glass The real instrument The second eye What a pair is for Many pictures at once The eye that moves Systems that kept the measure What each system gave up What a machine computes The rectangle behind the lens The second projection Drawn confidently

Drawn confidently

The constructions taught in every book on the subject, measured. Some are fine. The point is that nobody knows which until the drawing is asked what solid it depicts.

horizoncorrect from 20 cm, at 160 mm wide44° across

Measured down from the waterline

Whatever stands so far above the water, draw its reflection the same distance below. Through a vertical picture plane that is not an approximation — it is the reflection, to the arithmetic floor. Tilt the camera twenty-two degrees and it is eleven pixels out. Draw a gull, which touches the water nowhere, and guessing its waterline point wrong by two metres of depth costs fifty.

13 figures