Visual Understanding

Purpose of Visual Understanding

• Understand what you see and communicate that to an audience.

• Understand the rhetorical purposes and functions of visual texts, realizing that the visual composer may be suggesting ideas through design.

• Enhance your concept of description and development of thesis.

Analyzing

• Looking at images holistically, focusing on the images and the reactions they pull from you.

• Holistic: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The entity of the image and your reaction combine to create an effect.

React

This type of image…

• has a clear subject matter• is charged with emotion• suggests a storyand therefore is often easy to talk about.

React

• This type of image often requires more effort because there are no human subjects, thus little drama

How to approach the challenge

• First consider sensory descriptions:– What did you notice about the picture of the

trees?– The leaves, the branches? The shape and size of

the trunks and the angles at which they grow. How are these trees different/similar to other trees? What impact does the light, season, weather have on the image?

– What other factors make this image stand out?

• Once you have an idea of the general impression of the image and what it means, move beyond the sensory and emotional details and consider the composition and visual cues captured by the composer.

Images as Visual “Texts”

• “Reading” images is similar to reading a verbal text

• Images have a structure and sometimes even narrative quality.

• This transition requires:– Detailed observation– Willingness to experience what we see– Time devoted to the method and language

designed to enhance visual learning

Know the Language

• Focal point• Figure-ground contrast• Similarity• Proximity & Orientation • Similarity• Color• Continuation• Line• Closure

• Story• Context• Closure

Focal Point

Focal Point

• The central/primary figure of an image (usually there is one dominant focal point)

• It’s where your eyes immediately go when viewing a picture

• Rhetorically speaking, this focal point is the subject the composer wants the “reader” for a reason. Your job is to determine what that reason may be.

Focal Point

Focal Point

• You may not know exactly what the composer was thinking, but you are capable of analyzing the image and taking a position on possible rhetorical rationales.

Figure-Ground Contrast

• Argued as one of the most critical components of analysis

• Emphasizes the difference between the subject in front (the figure) and the context in back (ground…like background).

• The figure is usually the most important component in the image…often the focal point– Ex: Challenger paragraph

Figure-ground contrast

• When there is no clear contrast, our eyes will keep searching for distinction.

• We use contrast as a means of categorizing, which allows us to make meaning, which allows us to understand.

• Once we connect using contrast, our brains imprint that connection and we will nearly always “see” the connection from that point forward.

Proximity & Similarity

• We make sense of things by categorizing or grouping them together.– “Those books”, “a gaggle of geese”, etc.

• Different relationships give us further information we can use to analyze or read images.

• We group things in two basic ways:– By relationship in space: PROXIMITY– By relationship in size, color, etc: SIMILARITY

There is no easy way to differentiate among these dots:

However, by changing their physical location, we can group by proximity. Now we have two

groups of 4 and two groups of 2!

Grouping objects together shows a connection, a relationship.

Even though these dots are the same size and distance away from one

another, we will begin to group by similarity, because certain dots share certain features (in this case, color). But this can also be done with shape

or any other defining feature.

Color

• Most people respond immediately to color and often in an emotional way.

• The brighter the color, the more powerful its effects.

• Effects are often culturally based.• Ex: In our culture, white is a color of purity. In

China and Japan, white is the color of mourning.

• Within cultures the meaning of color can change.

• Color can: – Focus our attention (as in previous dot example)– Create contrast– Appeal to our emotions– Help to communicate nuances of meaning– Increase comprehension and remind of us other

things that we can relate to

Continuation

• Elements that suggest a continued visual line will be grouped together.

• Primary principle behind how we “see” images in the night sky, such as the zodiac signs and the Big Dipper.

Line• Lines help to provide a sense of motion or

movement• Artists use line to create edges and outline

objects.• The direction of a line can also convey mood.– Stress or calm?

Closure• Innate need to complete pictures• When we seen an incomplete figure, we often

color it in to fix it. Have you done this?• Leaving some information out in visuals

creates interest, generates tension, and contributes to the narrative quality of the image. Also, it promotes viewer participation and attention!

RAMES

Story

• Using all of the previous devices to distinguish objects, we can look at the image as a whole and consider whether the image tells a story.

• In images, the elements are arranged so that the main focal point first attracts the viewer’s attention and each subsequent element, or minor point, creates relationships.

Context

• What is the context of the image?• Think about the world and apply what you

know!• What is happening before/after the image?• Time period?• ….and so much more!

The Whole Composition

• Recognize that the image you are looking at was COMPOSED – put together or created by someone to communicate or recreate an emotional or intellectual response.

Essential Questions

• What do you feel or experience as you view the image?

• Where does your eye go and why?• What do you think are the key elements or

features of the image? How do they contribute to what you see and feel?

• Look for elements in the image that are positioned close together. What connections do you see between/among those elements?

Essential Questions• Are there any elements in the image that seem

similar (shape, texture, size, color, etc.)? • Explain the effects of those elements on your

response to the image.• When you examine the image and your

emotional response, how do the color(s) or degrees of shading contribute to that response?

• How do your own experiences or knowledge affect your reading of the image? Think about the image in terms of context: personal, historical, technical, or cultural

Essential Questions

• Is there a story or narrative embedded in the image?

• How would this image be different if X changed? Replace the X with terms like focal point, figure-ground contrast, color, texture, size, shape, etc.

Grouping: Proximity & Similarity