What Is An Imgage? Essay, Research Paper

What is an image? What composes an image? In the following paragraphs, we are going to talk about the definition of an image and discuss how the particular image chosen employs elements such as composition, colour, camera angles, frames and emotional impact.

An image is something we see and something that has emotional impact on the viewer according to their personal experiences. According to the Merriam-Webster s Collegiate Dictionary, an image means a tangible or visible representation, a vivid or graphic representation or description . An image must be composed in a frame by putting the camera shots in the right angles so it makes attractive shapes.

The chosen image is a black and white photograph of a site within a city. There is a bridge in the back between two rows of buildings; there are people, cars and carriages on the street, the weather seems to be sunny because there is a clear contrast of around the shadows; the era is unclear because of the style of the buildings and the carriages and the cars belong to the 19th century, but the style of the bridge and the buildings behind it belong to the 20th centuries. This is clear that this photograph has been modified by a computer by software like Adobe Photoshop to combined two images of different time period together into one image.

The image is attention grabbing because of its unbalanced composition. The camera was panning to the right to push the vanishing point to the left, leaving the right row of the building larger than the left row, thus create a feeling that the right side of the image is heavier than the left side. The vanishing point of the foreground image is going to the left but the direction the bridge in the background goes to the right, because of the different angles, it gives a feeling that the image is curved. The bridge is emphasized because it composed in the center in the frame. The colour has given the image a great depth because the further the objects are, the more the colours fade out and also the further the distance, the smaller the objects are. The bridge in the centre back is almost as big as the building in the foreground, but because the colour is lighter, it gives the feeling that it is a huge construction but it is also far away. The uses of black and white films create a sense of history and coldness. It also emphasizes the shape of the objects because there is no much complexity created by other colors.

The image is paradoxical. It is unclear in anachronistic. Two different kinds of constructions built in different time periods at the same time in the photograph. It is confusing but very challenging. It feels like this is a documentary photograph showing in the future about what a human city was like and probably by then there are no human beings existing so this photograph is a historical photograph of the last human city!