One Point / Single Point Perspective

When all lines converge to a single point I feel like I am in a Stanley Kubrick film. Whether it's 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange or Full Metal Jacket there's something mathematically and visually quite potent, as all lines converging to a single point on the horizon. It induces a kind of tunnel vision. Once you start noticing them, it's hard not to appreciate their singular point of focus and so when I see one, I generally have to stop and take it home.

A Matter of Inches

For a true single point perspective to work in a photograph or a zooming movie shot, you sometimes have to move literally a few inches in one direction so that you are in the exact middle. It's not always possible to get exactly in the middle of the shot due to objects in the way. Other times, the true nature of the single point is not quite lined up as the horizon lines may curve away slightly.

Art Class

If you were to draw a single point view, you would imagine an arbitrary point on the horizon in the Z axis and you would draw all lines pointing towards it. When you added horizontal or X axis points, you would now start to describe a mathematically and visually realistic scene. In an ordinary view there are often have multiple points like the shot of Geno's Cheese Steak on the Corner in Downtown Philadelphia below. If you were drawing this, you would have two imaginary points on the horizon. All your lines in the Z axis would either point to one or the other depending on the position of the object. Try it for yourself with a piece of paper.

Tunnel Vision

Because we live in busy (often urban) spaces we don't encounter single point perspectives as often as we might and for this reason they hold a special fascination. Hotel & Hospital corridors, country roads, block in New York all have them. Here is a small selection from my collection and at the bottom a twin point perspective for comparison and I a great bonus, youtube compilation of Stanley Fantastic Kubrick's use of SPP / OPP

• Kentish Town West Overground station from the Platform Bridge

• Raised walkway above the reeds at Woodberry Downs Nature Reserve & Reservoir

• This Green Path at Lea Valley Park Reserve actually leads to a dead end

• A not quite SPP from Hackney Central Overground Station Bridge

• The wide long sandy Beach at low tide - Costa Calma, Fuerteventura

• Fulton Brooklyn, New York's Grid pattern design and long avenues give ample scope for SPP's

• Another seemingly infinite SPP in New York - Manhattan block crossing

• The London Underground has many long tunnels which induce a kind of rollercoaster effect

• This view of Geno's on the corner in Philly has two points of perspective which lie outside the shot on the left and the right.

CLICK DANNY TO PLAY THE MOVIE

I dedicate this pot in honour of the Late Great and Fantastic Stanley Kubrick who has taught me more about visual storytelling than perhaps anyone else, just by studying his excellent body of work.