Analyzing Visual Images

In response to Heather, I have to agree about your issue with people only applying these rules in the analysis of a text, visual image, or live performance and not also when they are in the creation of it. People over analyze to a point when they are getting beyond what the author intended. This thought initially occurred to me when we were looking at the photographs taken by the children who were victims of the tsunami in class on Wednesday. Those ten and eleven year old kids may not have the knowledge or vocabulary to understand common analyses we see in American critiques. They may have just taken the picture because it felt right to them. One could argue that ‘feeling right’ about the picture means that it is inherently human to notice those things, but placing strange critiques on a simple photograph seems ludicrous to me.

Even though I think the over analysis of visual images is for crazy people, I also think people need to follow the saying that you need to live by the rules before you can break them. For my students, this would mean before they venture out on their own to interpret visual images without acknowledgement of the basic critical analysis questions, they must first live and die by answering them. Until you understand the process of analyzing art, follow what the snobby art critics say until you know enough to form your own opinions.

The most interesting part of the text I read was the notion of analyzing visual images by looking for short-hand meanings. This is used a lot in current advertisements—so it would be something students would be able to easily latch onto and understand based on their own life experiences.

1. I think the most important things for students to understand about the analysis of visual images is that there may not be a right answer. Once students know that they can let their minds wander to ideas beyond the basic analysis questions, I would feel comfortable giving them the building blocks from which to start their developing thoughts.

2. I don’t know if the book ever specifically mentions this, but I got the idea from reading the prompting questions that there are two ways to begin the analysis of the text. One option is to start by asking specific questions about details of the image/text. This allows you to uncover potential important characteristics before trying to discover a meaning held within the image. Or, you can start by trying to gauge in your initial look at the image/text the meaning and then dig into it with the detailed questions in trying to determine what factors led you to that conclusion. If a student knows different ways to approach the image/text, they can feel more comfortable in finding the way that works best for them.

3. One of the coolest phrases I saw in the text was when the author told us to be ‘careful observers’. I thought this was really interesting because it led me to realize that more often than not, we can stop at superficial meanings or focus too much on a specific detail instead of calmly and carefully taking in as much of the image/text as we can. If we can stay calm and level-headed through our analysis, we can better understand how our emotions play into our interpretation of the image.