Framing - an analysis

This picture has 3 repoussoir objects, the church on the left the apartments on the right, and the wall at the bottom. Hence these foreground objects draw viewers gaze into the middle section with diminishing depth towards the horizon.

There is a subtle difference between the two. The picture on the right was taken from a vantage point more on the left, hence the church occupies a much bigger area. Despite this seemingly minor difference, the picture on the left draws our gaze directly in the centre of middle section, hence with no trouble our gaze reaches the horizon.

The picture on the right however is harder to look at, instead of gently steering our gaze towards the horizon, this picture makes us stuck on the left, somehow our gaze doesn't want to steer away towards the centre of middle section. This is because we pushed the repoussoir on the left (the church) too much to the right, as a result, it pushes the middle section further right, taking it away from our attention span.  It is harder (with an effort) to let our gaze driven to the horizon in the picture on the right. 

Tip: In order to see this effect with your own eyes, just click one of the pictures to enlarge, then quickly flip them by rapidly pressing the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.