Reddit reviews The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon

Holy fuck this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks loads, this is it. Is this the one you'd recommend?

And cheers to everyone else for the other suggestions!

Hello friend!

I wanted to try to elucidate what people are saying about contrast here. I think the observer is expecting to see a bit of 'atmospheric perspective,' as the image recedes. Atmospheric perspective is the basically the quantity of 'air' between the viewer and objects in the painting. If you observe distant mountains, you'll see that they have less local contrast than objects which are closer to you. Conversely, the object which is closest to the viewer (especially if it is the subject) should be defined greater range of values than anything else in the image.

That said, it is a tricky subject with space paintings since there usually isn't any sort of 'air' in space to cause this effect. It is true however that stars and so on will still have less contrast because of the incredible distance between them and the viewer (diminished brightness). If you imagine a star emitting light, it radiates out in an expanding sphere. The same amount of light is spread more and more thinly until only a tiny fraction of it reaches the human eye. In any case, the human mind expects at least some atmospheric perspective in almost every situation, even where it doesn't completely make sense.

You can see how nicely this works in even in more imaginative scifi settings. Take for example John Harris. Books of his work used to be very difficult to get but a new one has been published and is very affordable. http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-John-Harris/dp/1781168423