Spencer Archive Photographs

Elliot Erwin depicts depth of field in his 1979 photograph Diana by capturing an image of space being visually broken apart by the framework of successive showrooms spanned by an unbroken walkway. The picture plane is set within a showroom at one end of the walkway and sets the motif of spacial recession by framing the next level of depth (the next showroom) within the door frame of its predecessor.
Diana is intriguing because it involves formal and technical elements which I tried to capture in my preliminary "Embedded Images" idea. To begin, I had not placed the original composition on a grid which made it difficult to read. In order to break it apart, I placed the image on a vertical grid. With the visual breaks in the composition I was able to achieve a greater sense of spacial recession and legibility. Erwin also employs obvious visual breaks when separating space to compartmentalize the successive showrooms within the framework of the one before it.
 Similar to how Erwin uses the walkway as an unbroken plane to the vanishing point, I also wanted the sidewalk of the "Embedded Images" idea to guide the viewers eye to through the image to the vanishing point.
Erwin's inclusion of the archer statue in the foreground and the man in the middle-ground also emphasize the images depth by displaying the hierarchy of forms in perspective.