Lesson 8

The vanishing point is the point relative to you on the horizon where everything disappears. OK, I didn't say a whole lot new there. Let me demonstrate it like this. Your the passenger in a car. the sun is setting. you're going south on a dirt road in the countryside. You come across a corn field - it's wide open, row after row goes by. Ever notice how the sun always seems to move with you? And the rows seem to open and close as you go by at 60 miles an hour? And they shrink into a tiny point the closer they are to the horizon? Where everything seems to originate from, that's the vanishing point. The vanishing point is always on the horizon, perpendicular to the axis of vision of your eye.

Picture of vanishing point

It's like this: light passes through your pupil and shoots straight back at your retina. The most concentrated bundle of nerve fibers in your retina at the back of the eye directly behind the window your pupil is called the ".macula". And it's where your most detailed vision comes from. (People with "macular degeneration" see a black spot or a faded area directly in front of them.)

Retinal shot

No matter what position your head is at, the light always comes straight through your pupil and strikes the retina at a right angle. (I'm simplifying here: there's a lens behind the pupil that focuses the light so we see clear images - you have glasses or contacts if your lens can't focus that light tight enough by itself.)

Eye diagram

The point her is this: Light is always coming at YOU that's the visual information . What your brain interprets is always a picture of the light information striking your retina at a 90 degree angle. Which, from your point of view, from your perspective of the vanishing point, always puts you at the center of the universe. That's how we're designed. We couldn't have survived other wise.

Light strikes the macula and the whole retina at a right angle (compared to the to the The it like this

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