In Walker Evans’ “Signs”, different billboard signs are depicted atop skyscrapers in New York City. With this being a short depth of field piece, the hierarchy of the size of the signs have a great impact on the main focus of the image. The sign in the foreground takes up about the top half of the entire photograph with support legs reaching down to the lower half of the piece. This crisp delineation lends itself as a visual barrier to the background signs and skyline which is less in focus but can still be understood. As the background progresses further, a sfumato effect happens along the skyline giving the image a great depth. The composition of the signs intersecting with each other and a faded skyline in the background perhaps symbolizes the rapid industrialization that occurred in New York in the late 1920s with everything “piling up” so to speak.
And the sfumato effect contributes to the short depth of field.