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Deconstructing Images
By Gary Ferrington

Media images saturate our culture. Television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and the Internet are but a few of the visual sources we experience everyday.

For many, it is the images manufactured by others that define the world. From fast food selections to election choices, images influence personal decision making.

Visual knowledge about a remote village in Uzbekistan or the geological features on the surface of Mars, is obtained not through direct personal experience, but by the images seen in the media.

How do we come to understand the meaning of the images we see?

As with the ability to walk, talk, and carry on other functions of daily life we also learn how to make meaning of the light patterns the eyes transmit to the brain as electrical impulses.

When an infant the eyes have the ability to receive a blurry array of moving light, shadow, and color. But it is through experience that those flickering patterns on the back of the retina begin to take on form and definition in the brain.

We first begin to give recognition to those light patterns that represent mother and father. We rapidly learn other associations and so begins a life’s journey learning to see and seeing to learn.

How well we learn to see depends upon the type of experiences we have that asks us to deconstruct visual experiences. The artist who is able to draw what seems to be a perfect representation of the human form has learned to be a keen observer. He/she has made it a practice to look and deconstruct what is seen.

Learning to deconstruct our visual experiences comes through practice and when possible training such as that one obtains in art, photography, and other visual design courses.

There is evidence there are three steps in the brain's processing and making sense of what we see. These happen almost simultaneously.

First, the mind identifies elements with which it is familiar such as line, color, and form. It then looks for details, striving for further recognition of information that will give definition to objects, people, places, and events. Finally, based upon the information gathered and compared with past visual experiences, an interpretation is made.

We will use the picture to the left to illustrate how we might deconstruct and interpret a visual image.

First, the eye scans the image and begins to identify objects that are familiar based on one's life experience with similar things. For example we have learned to classify objects light patterns into objects such as tree, woman, car, and building and recognize these in this photograph.

Second, we begin to look for details.In this process we ask questions. For example, what type of car is this? When was it built? What period of fashion is the woman wearing? How old is she? What details can be seen about the building and in the field beyond that have significance? Where was this scene photographed? What time of day is it (look at shadows)? What is the season (look for the type of foliage)? There are many questions we can ask that facilitate our deconstruction of this image.

Finally, we make an interpretation based on our observations and pre-existing knowledge of similar image content. We can never be exactly sure of the validity of that interpretation if we weren't the one who took the photograph. For example, was the scene photographed in the 1920's or is it a recreation of the period as a set for a movie? Who is the woman and what is her relationship to the car and photographer? Often, many more questions can be raised than answered.

Validating the information in photographs has become more difficult today because of digital editing. Objects are often removed or added to photographs for editorial purposes. Indeed images have been manipulated ever since the beginning of photography. But today, technology has made such manipulation difficult to identify and so a question of ethics has been raised.

This image made the rounds on the Internet soon after the 911 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Many accepted it as an actual photograph of a jet liner about to hit one of the towers. The Urban Research Center has a very informative deconstruction of this particular photograph. But before you read that analysis do a bit of your own evaluation. What prior knowledge do you need about New York City, the World Trade Center Towers, and the flight path of the attacking planes, to deconstruct this image? Give it some thought and then read the analysis. For further analysis see the article at the Urban Legends Reference Page. The question the photograph generates for many is why would someone construct such an image given the tragic event of 9-11?

Constructing images for specific purposes requires knowledge of the end user. A media designer is a visual communicator. Understanding a target audience will deconstruct specific images will facilitate the construction of a project's photographic content.

Photo: Springdale, 1920's - Glenn Ferrington
Photo: 911 - Email ho