IMAGE ANALYSIS

1.- OBJECTIVE READING

A) THEME DEPICTION
* Author

* Technique:
Drawing
Painting
Sculpture and relief
Architecture
Printmaking
Photography

Films
Video/TV
Installation Digital
Interactive digital images +
internet
Mixed technique Image

* Genre:
Portrait, group portrait
Religious (mythological if refered to ancient greek or latin gods)
Nude
Historical events
Landscape
Still life
Costumbrist
Political.
* Identification of objects and characters
* General style: artistic period / time-space location
* Iconicity level: according to the similarity between referent and representation.
Figurative / Abstract. Levels (low, medium, high)
B) TECHNICS ASPECTS
* Support (cardboard, fabric, wood, wall...)
* Technique
Drawing and Painting: charcoal, pastel, wax colours, gouache, water colour, oil, acrylic,
fresco, collage, tempera...
Sculpture and relief: modelling, carving, casting, assemblage, readymade
Printmaking:
o Relief: woodcut, linocut and metalcut
o Intaglio: engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatiny
o Planographic: lithography, monotyping, digital techniqies
o Stencil: screenprint

Photography: pin hole, analogic, polaroid, digital

* Tools (pencils, markers, fountain pen, brush, palette knife, camera obscura...)
* Kind of brush-stroke (long or short brush-stroke, thin or thick, textured or smooth)

C) ARTISTIC ELEMENTS
* Use of the basic elements of visual language:
Points
Lines
Shapes: regular, organic, closed, opened
Planes
Textures: organic, artificial, optical, tactile
Colour
o Primary, Complementary, Hot, Cold
o Combination and meanings
o Black and white, Monochrome, Bichrome, Full colour, With modified colour
balance
* Perspective: linear / aerial
*Light:
Sources (natural/ artificial)
Direction (top, low, frontal, backlit, lateral),
Colour/temperature
Kind (direct/ difussed)
Style (contrasted, smooth, high key, low key)
* Composition
* Framing
Balanced /centrered
Close-up (CU)
Harmonic / contrasted
Medium closeup (MCU)
Simple and clear /
Medium Shot (MS)
overloaded
Medium long shot (MLS)
Static / dynamic
Long shot (LS)
Open / closed
Extreme long shot (ELS)
Two-shot
Three-shot
* Camera angle or point of view
Low-Angle Shot (LA)
Eye-Level Shot
High-Angle Shot (HA)
Dutch or Oblique Angle Shot

* Lenses
Wide-Angle
Normal
Telephoto
Zoom

* Time representation
Linear
Non linear: use of parallel narration, flash back, flash forward
2.- SUBJECTIVE READING
* Social stereotypes appearing in the image
* Context and channel of the communication process.
* Image function: informative, exhortative, expressive, aesthetic, pedagogical, technical,
scientific, medical, economical, entertaining, identificative, memory substitutes
* Image classification:
- According to number of copies: unique or serialized (limited series/massive series)
- According to its number of receptors: exclusive, elitist /popular, massive
* Group of people the image is addressing.
* Identifications and emotional reactions the image pretends to provoke in the receptors.
* Ideas about reality the image tries to spread.
* Expressive strategies.
* Feedback possibility.
* Personal valoration of the communicative phenomenon.

Notes
- Still life: it depicts mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which
may be either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made
(drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on)
PERSPECTIVE
- Aerial or atmospheric perspective: method of creating the illusion of depth in a painting or
drawing by modulating colour to simulate changes effected by the atmosphere on the colours
of things seen at a distance. The colours of the object become less saturated and shift to
blueish or greyish, they have less detailed, and usually blurer than near objects.
- Linear perspective: representation on a flat surface of 3D, the objects are smaller as their
distance from the observer increases. One-point perspective, two-points perspective, threepoint perspective, four-point perspective, foreshortening.
FRAMING
-Close-Up (CU): The camera is close to the subject, so that when the image is projected most
of the screen shows a face and its expression, or some relatively small part of a larger whole.
- Medium closeup (MCU): Shot whose scale is between MS an CU. A character shown from the
chest up.
- Medium Shot (MS): A human subject in MS is generally shown from the waist up; background
begins to be visible and potentially important, and two-shots are possible.
- Medium Long shot (MLS): Human subject is shown from knees up. Also called an American
shot because Hollywood movies of the Thirties used it so often for dramatic action.
- Long shot (LS): The camera is a considerable distance from the subject(s) being filmed. The
whole human figure from head to feet is included in the frame, with surrounding environment
very visible.
- Extreme long shot (ELS): The camera is very far away from the subject, giving us a broad
perspective. Often used to create an establishing shot, setting up a new scene.
-Two-Shot: Medium or medium long shot of two characters.
- Three-Shot: Medium or medium-long shot of three characters.
CAMERA ANGLE OR POINT OF VIEW
The position of the camera (in terms of height from the ground) in relation to the subject
being filmed.
Low-Angle Shot (LA): The camera is positioned below the subject, and shoots upward at it.
The effect is to make the subject look dominating, powerful, as if a child were looking up at
an adult. An extreme low angle (ELA) would be an extreme variant.
Eye-Level Shot: The camera is located at normal eye level (five to six feet from ground
level) in relation to the subject. Unless otherwise noted in the script, the camera will
automatically be set up at eye level. When analysing a scene, eye-level shots do not need
to be indicated as such; the reader will assume that this is the position of the camera,
unless otherwise indicated.
High-Angle Shot (HA): The camera is positioned somewhere above the subject and shoots
down at it. An extreme high angle woould be an extreme variant. In a birds eye shot the
camera is placed directly over the subject.
Dutch or Oblique Angle Shot: The camera is tilted so that on screen, the horizon appears to
be tilted. Often used as a subjective shot to indicate stress, such as when a character is
drunk or drugged.
LENSES
Wide-Angle: A lens with short focal length, having a wider than normal field of view. It has
the effect os appearing to expand the depth of the image, and can cause visual distorsion
when the subject is close to the camera.
Normal

Telephoto: A lens with a long focal length, which gives a narrower than normal field of
view, and compresses depth in space, appearing to bring distant subjects nearer, and
giving the image a flattened effect (opposite of wide-angle photography).
Zoom: A composite lens that allows one to move from wide-angle to normal to telephoto or
the reverse. Makes it possible to move toward or away from the subject without moving
the camera.