How to analyze a picture (importante per esame!)
(bbc- 50 reasons to love the world – 27th picture, New York)
▲Ideational metafunction: (what’s happening)
Urban scene, it’s raining, people crossing the streets
Represented participants: people
▲Interpersonal metafunction: (relation between subject and viewer)
Contact: no eye-contact
Perspective: frontal, eye-level
Size of frame: long shot (we see the full body)
Colors :
1. Saturation: low saturation
2. Differentiation: low differentiation (we have a limited range of colors)
3. Modulation: pretty homogeneous colors
Light: we have natural daylight, but also artificial light (red leds)
1. Brightness: dark, gloomy
2. Depth: foreground- person on the left, mid-ground- person jumping, background –
people walking.
▲Textual metafunction: (everything dealing with organization and simultaneity)
Information value: image at the centre, text the right (in this textwe have known+ new-
quote + photographer’s name)
Salience: big size of the picture, color contrast
Framing: (elements that connect/disconnect things in a picture)
▲Interpretation: it’s a dynamic image, we feel a part of New York’s life, we feel
involved in the city. Values we get: it’s a spontaneous and real city.
