Visual Analysis

Missed lectures - points given to me includedbelow.
Followed by my own research and reading follows.

There is no real truth
People say there are 3 sides to every story, your side, their side & the truth?

Culture is too complex to fully understand everything and there are many conflicting views within a society.

We deconstruct, look at in isolation and within a context.

Gestault theory -
Descrive work -

• Technical evaluation of the craft

• The frame/narrative/story
• The gaze/lead the eye
• Composition
• Format
• Secondary composition
• Scale

In trying to understand the above I have looked at several articles and books

Basics of Critical Theory

Visual communication

http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbroom/Lectures/gestalt.htm

And have tried to apply them to the images that were used as examples with the group.

Hoppers Sunday morning

Painted in such a way as to be technically correct, the lines are static and no movement is implied

It is a 'static image' which communicates it's permanance. it is solid.

Static can be used to communicate something that is physically strong.

It is lanscape in orientation, traditional for this subject. 

it is ordered and balanced which produces a calm, and utilises the rule of thirds.

The tone and hue contribute to the implied bright morning sum, as do the shadows.

it is not faded to convey age or decay.

The way that Hopper painted is like a camera would produce an image, quite realistic and cropped - but by using paint was he communicating something about progression and technology also?

Rodchenko Fire Escape

The image is taken from underneath looking up and appears to be taken in the course of events.

This is a dynamic image, movement is implied.

This could also be by blur, or frenzied brush strokes.

it implies energy.

Unlike Hoppers Sunday Morning, it is temporary, he may not get this shot again.

The image is balanced but the uncomfortable view point, the slant of the ladders etc adds a disordered element to the image creating tension.

Weston - Sand dunes

Sand dunes illustrates fluidity.

The flowing lines lead the eye into the image

Imogen Cunningham

Something real composed as an abstract.

Negative space of looking room in media are equally important to give subjects room to breathe.

Less is more - the image is easier to read and absorb.

Too busy - hectic, cramped.

This can also effect the dynamics of an image.

Example

A blurred yellow taxi cab depicts movement

When pictured against a city scene with crowds in the street it would communicate a busy crowded city with noise and activity - but is there something going on in the crowd we are meant to see?

The same blurred taxi can - still depicting movement and speed, pictured on the same road, but empty could depict a different scenario.

Are things close/dispersed/cramped/distant?

Use space.

Size matters - it can communicate something in itself.

Scale - viewed at different distances. If something is large then one must have room to stand back and view - there is a danger that people will pass through in interrupt the reading.

If something is smaller then the viewer has to come closer to properly see the image, there is a danger that people may walk past and work will go un-noticed (noise/channel issues in communication theory)

The medium also matters - as in Picasso's Guernica, news print as used in a painting to depict something that was reported with photographic images. And Hoppers lighthouse is cropped like you would see in a photo not a painting. They choose the medium to say something or reinforce the message communicated.