2D vs 3D pictorial organisation

I was reading Bence Nanay's article "Two-Dimensional Versus Three-Dimensional Pictorial Organization" (published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 73, No. 2) and I was struck by how well it provides a framework for understanding and describing the sorts of things that I consider when I make my photographs. It has helped me to understand -- and articulate to myself -- just how I approach pictorial organisation in my pictures.

2D pictorial organisation is clearly dominant in my pictures. In Nanay's words, I tend to "resolve conflicts between 2D and 3D" representations of the world in favour of 2D.

So what does this mean exactly?

Well, it's a very academic way (as I understand it) of saying that I emphasize the formal arrangement of elements on the two-dimensional picture surface rather than trying to depict a scene in three-dimensional space. In other words, I emphasize the graphic design of the two-dimensional image over depicting the visual depth (the three-dimensionality) of a scene. In fact, finding and depicting 'scenes' in this way is usually the last thing I'm trying to do when I'm out with my camera, and I'm often deliberately trying to subvert that sense of depth.

For example, in this photograph I aligned the shadows that fall on different planes in the image in such a way as to try to make the shape created by the dark and light parts of the picture appear as a single, contiguous shape, negating the three-dimensional depth of the scene. I wanted to emphasize the shape of the lit surfaces and portray it as a two-dimensional graphic element rather than try to show the 'scene' of the room itself.

This approach to pictorial organisation is everywhere in my photographs and this is not something that I was really conscious of before ready Nanay's article.

Here is another example where, once again, I tried to negate the three-dimensional depth present in the scene (yes, it is a real-life scene!) in preference for the graphic, two-dimensional qualities of what I saw.

Nanay points out that 2D and 3D approaches to pictorial organisation aren't mutually exclusive -- that perhaps it's more like a continuum and that individual styles (and even historical artistic movements) tend to lean toward one end of the continuum over the other.

Here is another example of mine that illustrates that notion of a continuum of stylistic choice.

In this case the photograph depicts a three-dimensional scene in which spatial depth is clearly described by the converging lines of the timber deck -- the viewer can easily understand that the sand us in the background of the scene. However, the way that I approached making this photograph was to emphasize the bicycle shadow, the lines of the timber deck, and the contrasting strip of texture created by the sand at the top of the frame as three different graphic elements that all sit together to fill the frame. I wasn't interested in showing the 'scene' per se, but rather the graphic 2D quality of what I saw. And this thought process was quite spontaneous and intuitive on my part because I only had a second to frame and make the exposure as I walked past the bicycle and its shadow. So the preference that I seem to have for two-dimensional surface design over the representation of three-dimensional space is quite internalized and comes naturally to me.

Of course, I'm over-simplifying (or ignoring) the complexities, the historical context, and other contingencies of Bence's article, but the distinction that he makes between 2D and 3D pictorial organisation has helped me understand my own work considerably.