VISUAL LITERACY - GRAPHIC ORGANIZER FOR IMAGE DECONSTRUCTION

Three Steps to Deconstructing Images:

1. Look closely, look long.

2. Ask probing questions

3. Put it together. Nail the purpose and audience.

Paste Image

Image Details (Date, Context) The image is of a burned village in 1969 located in central Vietnam
during the Vietnam war.

Composition: The immediate observation the viewers make is the man who is
using the satellite phone while smoking what seems to be a cigarette.
Next we observe the background in which we see another man
sitting down lighting his cigarette amid the all destruction in the
background.

Focus The foreground is the standing man and seems to be the point of
focus of the image. The background is rather chaotic and includes a
man sitting and lighting his cigarette, smoke being emitted into the
sky and telephone lines almost falling over. In general the
background is rather distorted with a lot happening which primarily
drives the viewers focus to the man on the satellite phone .

Lighting We notice that in the image there are no shadows thereby indicating
 that the lighting isn’t particularly very strong/bright.

Color The photograph is shot in black and white. We also observe that in
the photograph there are a lot of light tones which could ideally
symbolize of the happiness of soldiers that they have accomplished
their mission and that the war is over. The dark tones on the other
hand although aren’t very prevalent but could symbolize the
destruction of the village and the drastic effects of war on land and
property.

People and Places We observe that there are two men in the photograph and the setting
Is a village. Both the men appear to be soldiers. One of them is
sitting down lighting his cigarette while the other is to trying to
contact someone via what appears to be a satellite phone. We can
also see that they are unarmed and have put down their weapons and
helmets. This tells us that the war they were fighting is over and
could also explain why they are smoking cigarettes which is
something people typically do in order to relax or relieve some stress
after an intense situation/day. Talking about the setting, it is a village
in Central Vietnam. The space is disorienting and is giving viewers
an idea of what a village/city looks like in the aftermath of the war.

Gaze Both men in the photograph aren’t looking at the camera and seem
to not have noticed it. In addition to this both men appear to be least
bothered about their chaotic surroundings The man who is standing
seems to be lost in his own thoughts whereas the other man is
focused on lighting his cigarette. Which could also portray their
insensitive nature towards the destruction caused by the war.

Framing and Cropping The photograph has a lot of background and seems to be rather
spacious. However, we do see that the lower body of the standing
man has not been shown, furthermore at the top left we see that a
portion of what appears to be a shed has been cut out a little.