Tool 7: Interpreting images

Just like texts, pictures contain a lot of information. The following tips will help you to interpret and understand pictures.

Discover information about the picture

• What are the most important colours in the picture?
• Where are noticeable shapes, patterns, lines?
• What is larger or smaller than normal?
• How big is the thing/person in the picture in reality?
• What time period (the past, the present) and what time of the year or day are presented in the picture?
• From what perspective do you see the subject of the picture: through the eyes of a frog, a bird or a person?
• What can you recognise in the picture?
• What type of picture is it (a picture, a poster, a painting, a wood engraving, a graphic, a collage, a portrait, a landscape, a caricature, etc.)?
• What is exaggerated or emphasised in the picture (light/dark, proportions, foreground/background, colourfulness, movement/stillness, gestures, facial expressions)?

Take in the picture

• What is particularly noteworthy about the picture?
• What do you like about it?
• What is characteristic of the picture?
• How do you feel when you look at the picture?
• Which part of the picture is the most beautiful?
• Which words come to mind when you look at the picture?

Discuss the picture

• Describe the picture in your own words.
• Tell one another what is meaningful, striking or important in the picture.
• Ask one another questions about the picture.
• Give short commands to one another, such as search for, find, show, explain …
• Discuss such questions as: Why were these pictures chosen? Which pictures complement the text that belongs to the pictures? Which pictures clash with what is written in the text?

Work with the pictures

• Choose a picture and act out the scene you see there.
• Introduce the person that you see in the picture.
• Alter the pictures and comment on them.
• Compare historical pictures with the pictures you have.
• Explain what would have been difficult to understand in the text if you hadn’t had the pictures to help you.
• Add suitable pictures that complement the text.
• Compare the pictures and appraise them. Do you like them? If not, why not?
• Write a description of the picture.
• Think about what happened just before the picture was taken or painted/drawn.
• Think about what would happen if the picture were to come alive.
• Add some speech bubbles with text to the picture.
• Describe the smells and sounds that the picture makes you think of.
• Collect pictures of similar subjects.

Interpret the picture

• What title would you give the picture?
• Where was the picture taken or painted/drawn?
• What did the photographer/artist want to say with this picture?
• Why was this picture taken or painted/drawn?