Gunther KRESS and Theo VAN LEEUWEN,
Visual messages can be described in terms of their Representational function,
that is what they show, the content we see when we view them.
A selective outline of the major meaningful choices made in each of these overarching,
metafunctional categories follows, highlighting the aspects most significant
for the current discussion. It should perhaps be noted at the very outset,
though, that this approach does not take a deterministic view of visual
communication and is not intended either to rule out variation in individual
viewers' interpretations of an image or to provide an exhaustive description of all
that might be said. In the same way as linguistic analysis can provide an objective
description of the textual features that provide the meaning potential from
which a reader/hearer derives actual meaning, so visual semiotic analysis can provide
an interpretive framework, which each viewer will flesh out with their own specific meanings,
incorporating connotations, experience, world view etc.
Point of view involves the vertical and horizontal angles from which the image
is depicted and the symbolic meanings of power and involvement that may thus be created.
In terms of options along the horizontal plane, a frontal angle—full face view—construes
positive involvement between viewer and image, while an oblique angle—a view in profile
—suggests greater detachment, up to the extreme degree represented in this image
by the back view of the migrant. In the vertical plane, the image may be "seen"
from a high vantage point, depicting the viewer as being in a position of power,
looking down on the participants, while a low vantage point conversely depicts those
in the image as having power over the viewer, seeming in the extreme case to loom over us.
The mid-range option of eye-level symbolises a relationship of equality between viewer
and participants in the image.
