Reflection on: “The Anatomy of a Visual Message.”

Reflection on:

 “The Anatomy of a Visual Message.”

Coexisting cooperatively, rather than aloofly are three levels of receiving and expressing visual images. These are the representational, abstract and symbolic levels. When messages are viewed "representationally", there is a recognition of common things viewed from experience. Abstractly viewing objects, on the other had involves judging objects viewed based on their outright outlook, rather than their use, while symbolically viewing messages involves alluding meaning to the codes and symbols present.

This book’s insightful nature enabled me to pick up on the fact that in the process of learning, vision is a factor which is extremely depended on. This is because vision is particularly important for both learning and survival, and hence plays an integral part of our ability to make messages. This book excerpt, therefore emphasized this concept vision in terms of its representation, symbolism and abstraction,

When trying to technically portray/ represent a visual image as accurately as possible, as I understood from this book, a photograph is the best means of doing so. As a result of the various possible effects which can be created through a photograph such as light intensity, level of “zoom” and tone, photographs are indeed preeminent, as they are a very effective means of capturing moments, as they appear in time and space.

Visual images can also be utterly reduced and simplified in order to pass across messages. This involves the concept of “symbolism”. The audiences symbols are targeted at may be unaware of its meaning and hence, may need to be adequately educated depending on how abstract the symbol is. Symbols are applicable in several walks of life including engineering, music, architecture and folklore. The process of this “degradation” of images into pure and simple symbols involves abstraction. Abstraction, however, apart from being just about conversion into symbols, also involves the shifting away from obvious/ realistic visual representation, so as to represent messages more intricately.

The levels of expressing visual images, namely representationally, symbolically and abstractly, each have their own profound and unique characteristics. They, however can be defined, as complimentary to one another.