Image analysis: an interactive approach to compositional elements

This article proposes an interactive approach to the analysis of compositional elements of still visuals. This approach stems from the argument that the rhetorical efficiency of images is related less to their content per se than to how this content is displayed and organised. As such, we start from the premise that images are "active," performing the visual equivalent of speech-acts (i.e., "image-acts") through which they construct the world and its impact upon their viewers. In their turn, the audiences of an image participate in interpreting its meaning and responding to its particular "action." This leads us to formulate a method based on the active engagement of researchers with the image at hand. We suggest a classification of compositional elements and identify ways in which such elements can be analyzed and interpreted, thus casting light on the range of rhetorical and ideological effects that images so often achieve.