Andrew Unvericht

Evaluate an Image

October 3, 2011

Professor Tom Hammond

Evaluate an Image

The image that I choose was the cover of a book about Ben-Hur that I had in my room when assigned this assignment. It was very appealing to me because it shows a great scene from the movie that can be viewed many different ways but it will still remain beautiful. The image represents a pinnacle scene from the movie, which shows the protagonist, Judah Ben-Hur during a chariot race. I the main reason I choose this image is because it has many aspects that we went over in class and also is a very beautiful image from one of my favorite movies. I’m not quite sure if it is the best image to analyze because it can’t be interpreted to many ways but it still represents something both beautiful and expansive.

I thought I would start off by going over the details that we talked about in class. First of all the picture is presented in open frame and widescreen, which allows the viewer to see more of the image. Its open frame shows that there is much more that can be going on that we cannot see. It is a dynamic image because it shows the films protagonist in a chariot moving from end of the image to another, which implies that he is racing away from something. In the background we can see that there are more people in the chariots and that there is an audience watching said chariot race. The audience is also a bit blurry which implies that the main protagonist is far away from the audience while the other racers in the image are much closer to them.

Now I am going to move onto the color of the image. The image is lacking color in certain areas but the majority of the color is there to represent the main protagonist and the chariot that he is currently in. I personally found this to be the best part of the image because it shows that the man in the chariot is the main character and that everything going around him is not as important as the main characters journey throughout the film. I thought it was a good thing to do to the image because it lets the main character, Judah Ben-Hur, stands out in a crowded image like the one I picked. I don’t know how to explain the color theme but it was a good choice in my opinion and I think it makes the image beautiful and a work of art even if it is just a movie still.

The distance of the image is a medium shot with a long shot background. I feel that it is better if it is a medium shot because it focuses more on the main character rather than focusing what going on around him. It lets the person who is viewing the image to know that this is the character that the story is going to focus on and how he is the person who is triumphant in the scene that the image is depicting. There is a lot going on in the image and it is a good quality to focus on who the character is and how he relates to the rest of the image. As I asked my brother and his girlfriend about the image and how they thought about it they had the same reaction to the image that I did. My brother specifically feels that it is an image that is meant to represent the main character and his girlfriend spoke about the motion of the picture and how it represented what the main character was doing in the image.

I think that the image best displays that main character and what he is doing in the picture. I liked the picture when I saw it and thought that it would work well for this project. It is a beautiful image that really makes me think more about the image from the film and how I feel about the way it is shown. Like I said earlier I choose this image because it depicts a great scene from one of the most entertaining films that I’ve seen.