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August 21, 2020 By TutorPhil 47 Comments

How to Write an Image Analysis Essay in 6 Easy Steps

Writing an analysis of a picture can be a little daunting, especially if analyzing and essay writing are not your strengths. Not to worry. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do it, even if you’re a beginner.

To write an effective visual analysis, all you need to do is break the image into parts and discuss the relationship between them. That’s it in a nutshell.

Writing an image analysis essay, whether you’re analyzing a photo, painting, or any other kind of an image, is a simple, 6-step process. Let me take you through it. 

Together, we’ll analyze a simple image and write a short analysis essay based on it. You can analyze any image, such as a photo or a painting, by following these steps. 

Here is a simple image we’ll analyze.

And we’re ready for the…

6 Steps to Writing a Visual Analysis Essay

Step 1: Identify the Elements

When you look at this image, what do you see?

Right now, you are not just a casual observer. You are like a detective who must inspect things thoroughly and be careful not to miss any details. 

So, let’s put on our Sherlock Holmes hat, grab a magnifying glass, and make a list of all the major and some minor elements of this picture.

What do we observe?

  • Children. How many? Four. 
  • Children’s hands. Four pairs.

Great. These are all human elements. In fact, it would be useful for us to have two categories of elements: human and non-human. 

When we group elements into categories, it will help us later when we’ll be writing the essay. Categories make it easier to think about the elements. 

What other elements do we see?

  • The hands are holding soil. 
  • Each handful of soil also has a tiny plant in it.
  • Finally, we see the green lawn or ground on which the children stand. 

These are all of the obvious elements in the image. But can we dig deeper and observe more?

Again, wearing our Sherlock Holmes hat, our job is to gather information that may not be immediately obvious or noticeable. 

Let’s take another look, using our detective tentacles:

  • The children’s hands are arranged in a circle.
  • The children’s skin color varies from lighter to darker. 
  • The children wear summer clothes.

You may have noticed these elements even when you first saw the image. In that case, great job!

It looks like we’ve covered all the elements. We’re ready to move on to the next step. 

Step 2. Detect Symbols and Connections

What does Sherlock Holmes or any good detective do after basic observation? It is time to think and use our logic and imagination. 

We will now look for symbols and any connections or relationships among the elements.

Identifying Symbols 

  • Children symbolize future and hope. 
  • Their hands form a circle, creating a unifying effect. The symbol is unity, and there is power in unity. 
  • Children’s hands hold soil, and soil symbolizes earth, perhaps planet Earth.
  • The earth holds young plants which symbolize the environment and ecology.
  • The young plants also symbolize youth and the future. 
  • The children wear summer clothes, and summer symbolizes happiness and freedom because this is when children are on vacation and enjoy life. 

Great. Now, let’s see if we can make some connections and identify some relationships among the elements and symbols. 

We will use our imagination to put together some kind of a meaning. 

In analyzing an image, we want to understand what the creator or the artist is trying to convey. 

Do artists and photographers always want to convey something or is it sometimes just a picture? 

It doesn’t matter because we never know what the artist really thought when creating the work. We’re not mind readers. 

But we can always gather meaning using our own logic and imagination. We can derive meaning from any image. And that’s all we need to do to write an analysis essay.

Finding Connections and Relationships

Let’s allow our imagination to roam free and write down a few thoughts. Some ideas will be more obvious than others. 

  • This entire image seems to be about the future of the environment.
  • Why is this future important? It’s important because of the future generations, symbolized by the children. 
  • A strong sense of long-term future is conveyed because not only do the children hold plants, but these are baby plants. The message is “children hold future generations.” 
  • The variety of skin colors implies diversity. Also, the hands form a circle. Together, these two elements can mean: “global diversity.” 

As you can see, we can derive really interesting meaning from even a simple image. 

We did a great job here and now have plenty of material to work with and write about. It’s time for the next step.

Step 3. Formulate Your Thesis

In this step, your task is to put together an argument that you will support in your essay. What can this argument be?

The goal of writing a visual analysis is to arrive at the meaning of the image and to reveal it to the reader.

We just finished the analysis by breaking the image down into parts. As a result, we have a pretty good idea of the meaning of the image. 

Now, we need to take these parts and put them together into a meaningful statement. This statement will be our thesis. 

Let’s do it. 

Writing the Thesis

This whole picture may mean something like the following:

“The ecological future of our planet is in the hands of the children all over the world.”

This sounds good. Let’s write another version:

“Humanity must be mindful of the ecological future of our planet for the sake of the children all over the world.” 

This sounds good, as well. What is the difference between the two statements?

The first one places the responsibility for the future of the planet on children. 

The second one places this responsibility on the entire humanity. 

Therefore, the second statement just makes more sense. Based on it, let’s write our thesis. 

“This photo conveys the message that humanity must be mindful of the ecological future of our planet for the sake of the children all over the world.” 

Great! 

We now have our thesis, which means we know exactly what argument we will be supporting in the essay. 


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Step 4: Write the Complete Thesis Statement

While a thesis is our main point, a thesis statement is a complete paragraph that includes the supporting points.

To write it, we’ll use the Power of Three. This means that we are going to come up with three supporting points for our main point. 

This is where our categories from Step 1 will come in handy. These categories are human and non-human elements. They will make up the first two supporting points for the thesis.

The third supporting point can be the relationships among the elements. 

We can also pick a different set of supporting points. Our job here is to simply have three supporting ideas that make sense to us.

For example, we have our elements, symbols, and connections. And we can structure the complete argument this way:

All we really need is one way to organize our thoughts in the essay. Let’s go with the first version and formulate the supporting points.

Here’s our main point again:

“This photo conveys the message that humanity must be mindful of the ecological future of our planet for the sake of the children all over the world.” 

Here are our supporting points:

  1. The photographer uses the image of children to symbolize the future. 
  2. The non-human elements in the photo symbolize life and planet Earth.
  3. The author connects many ideas represented by images to get the message across. 

Now we have everything we need to write the complete thesis statement. We’ll just put the main and the supporting statements into one paragraph. 

Thesis Statement

“This photo conveys the message that humanity must be mindful of the ecological future of our planet for the sake of the children all over the world. The photographer uses the image of children to symbolize the future. The non-human elements in the photo symbolize life and planet Earth. The author connects ideas represented by these images to get the message across.”

Step 5: Write the Body of Your Essay

At this point, we have everything we need to write the rest of the essay. We know that it will have three main sections because the thesis statement is also our outline. 

We’re ready to write the body of the essay. Let’s do it. 

Body of the Essay (3 paragraphs)

“The author of this photograph chose children and, more specifically, children’s hands in order to convey his point. In many, if not all human cultures, children evoke the feelings of hope, new beginnings, and the future. This is why people often say, ‘Children are our future.’ Furthermore, the children in the photo are of different ethnic backgrounds. This is evident from their skin colors, which vary from lighter to darker. This detail shows that the author probably meant children all over the world.

The non-human elements of the picture are the plants and the soil. The plants are very young – they are just sprouts, and that signifies the fragility of life. The soil in which they grow evokes the image of our planet Earth. Soil also symbolizes fertility. The clothes the children wear are summer clothes, and summer signifies freedom because this is the time of a long vacation for school children. Perhaps the author implies that the environment affects people’s freedom. 

Finally, the relationships and connections among these elements help the photographer convey the message that humans should be mindful of their decisions today to ensure a bright future for the planet. This idea can be arrived at by careful examination. First, the children’s hands are arranged in a circle, which is a symbol of our planet and also signifies the power of unity. The future depends on people’s cooperation. Second, the children seem to be in the process of planting. The author emphasizes long-term future because the children hold baby plants. In other words, they ‘hold the future of other children’ in their hands. Third, the placement of the sprouts, which rest inside the soil in children’s hands, is a strong way to suggest that the future of the ecology is literally ‘in our hands.’”

Step 6. Add an Introduction and a Conclusion

Before we continue, I have an entire detailed article on how to write an essay step-by-step for beginners. In it, I walk you through writing every part of an essay, from the thesis to the conclusion. 

Introduction

That said, your introduction should be just a sentence or two that go right before you state the thesis. 

Let’s revisit our thesis statement, and then write the introduction. 

And now let’s write an introductory sentence that would make the opening paragraph complete:

“Photography is a powerful medium that allows to make an important statement visually.” 

Now, if you read this intro sentence followed by the thesis statement, you’ll see that they work great together. And we’re done with the opening paragraph.

Conclusion

Your conclusion should be just a simple restatement. You can conclude your essay in many ways, but this is the basic and time-proven one.

Let’s do it:

“In sum, the author employs the images of children and young plants to convey the message that the future of our planet depends on what people think and do today.”

We simply restated our thesis here. Your conclusion can be one or more sentences. In a short essay, a sentence will suffice. 

Guess what – we just wrote a visual analysis essay together, and now you have a pretty good idea of how to write one. 

Hope this was helpful!

Tutor Phil

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Filed Under: Essay Writing Tips, Get Started Tagged With: how to start an essay, how to write an essay, thesis statement, Write an Analysis

Comments

  1. Remula says

    October 10, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    Thanks, it an excellent example 🙂

    Reply
    • Ale says

      July 15, 2021 at 5:04 am

      Thank you for the great examples.

      Reply
  2. Remula says

    October 10, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    Oh, I meant it’s an excellent example 🙂

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 10, 2010 at 2:22 pm

      You are forgiven.

      🙂

      Reply
  3. Erna Baethen says

    October 15, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    The material I have been receiving from you is useful, clear and suitable for me to teach my students different techinques to achieve a better writing.

    Good job! I will continue unloading your material ….

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 21, 2010 at 10:54 am

      Erna,

      You’re very welcome!

      Reply
  4. Jes says

    October 17, 2010 at 9:43 am

    Wow, nice picture and good example. Thanks TutorPhil

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 21, 2010 at 10:49 am

      You’re welcome…

      Reply
  5. john says

    January 5, 2011 at 11:57 pm

    thanks for such kind of help you have on this particular example you made me feel like i am going to write an excellent essay for my regent and S.A.T.Thanks Tutor Phil

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      January 5, 2011 at 11:59 pm

      You’re welcome, John.

      Cheers…

      Reply
  6. Sanjay says

    March 31, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    Hi Phil
    Cheers!
    Thanks for your advice. I have been a teacher for the last 25 years. But I still feel that sky is the limit for learning. Your encouraging words that I can even write better than native speaker is very inspiring.
    I am obsessed with the idea of creativity and story writing. Will you please suggest some American publishers who accept stories and creative write ups ?
    Another area of my interest is Picture Composition. Can you suggest some free sites which provide story ideas and picture prompts?
    Frankly speaking, you may flash it. “I AM WILLING TO BE A PART OF YOUR TEAM FOR WORLDWIDE FREE COACHING OF WRITING”
    RSVP Cheers …… Sanjay

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      March 31, 2011 at 8:58 pm

      Sanjay,

      Quite frankly, I haven’t attempted to publish any fiction, so I wouldn’t know where to go if I needed to right now. I guess, Mr. Google is our best option at the moment.
      The same goes for picture prompts.
      As far as the ideas are concerned, your own mind is the best place to go. India is a fascinating place for inspiration. Just look around and write. Tagore did.

      T.P.

      Reply
  7. Sanjay says

    March 31, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Thanks for your advice.

    Reply
  8. robert bryant says

    November 10, 2011 at 2:34 am

    Tutor Phil,
    It is extremly kind of you to provide this material.Thanks,God bless

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      November 10, 2011 at 6:18 am

      You’re welcome, Robert!

      Don’t hesitate to send me your writing questions.

      TP

      Reply
  9. Dorcas says

    October 10, 2013 at 10:08 am

    This is truly very useful. I didn’t know how to start my analysis paper, but you example helped me get my thoughts together.
    Thank you TutorPhil.

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 31, 2013 at 3:27 pm

      You’re welcome 🙂
      TP

      Reply
  10. Ali hassan says

    April 7, 2014 at 9:44 am

    it is extremely curing my point about analysis of picture and documents as well thank for being so kind Tutor phil, really this is going to be a reliefe of my painful about the professor’s questions, it is greateful,thank you very much in deed my coach Tutor phil

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      April 14, 2014 at 12:55 pm

      You’re welcome, Ali 🙂

      Reply
  11. Ali hassan says

    April 7, 2014 at 10:24 am

    Iam very grateful with this example you gave me Tutor Phil, it helps me providing a way to deal with next exam papers,really thank you for being active and helpeful teacher thank you Tutor Phil long life!!!!

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      April 14, 2014 at 12:55 pm

      Thank you, Ali. Glad to be of help 🙂

      TP

      Reply
  12. Ciara says

    May 15, 2014 at 8:55 am

    hi im a yr 11 high school student and my teacher tells us to write about context, is the ecological side of this analytic essay apart of context?

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      June 17, 2014 at 10:18 pm

      Ciara, I think you got it just right. Good job!

      TP

      Reply
  13. Joe says

    September 22, 2015 at 3:58 am

    Great!!

    Reply
  14. neha says

    November 23, 2015 at 5:04 am

    Analysatiin of picture in 15sec and interpretation in 4 min is a difficult task…can u help me wid few quick tips

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      February 13, 2016 at 10:54 am

      Neha,

      I think you should simply follow the advice in this article but just shorten the process. In other words, practice doing the same but quickly.

      Just try it…

      Reply
  15. Diksha says

    February 9, 2016 at 2:38 am

    This example is very helpful, thanks a lot. 🙂

    Reply
  16. Diksha says

    February 9, 2016 at 2:39 am

    Thank you so much sir, it is very helpful. 🙂

    Reply
  17. kusutey says

    March 30, 2016 at 7:52 am

    hi Mr. the example is really helpful to me and I thank you very much for your job.

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      March 30, 2016 at 9:23 am

      You’re very welcome, Kusutey!

      Reply
  18. jones says

    September 8, 2016 at 6:24 am

    Writing a picture analysis essay requires a basic understanding of essay structure and these visual communication techniques. Excellent picture analysis essays combine both these elements while addressing the more ephemeral ideas and experiences communicated by a picture.

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      September 13, 2016 at 2:10 pm

      Thank you.

      Reply
  19. Meet says

    October 23, 2016 at 12:31 am

    Thanks for this example it made it simpler for me to understand how to analyse an image

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 26, 2016 at 9:40 am

      You’re welcome, Meet!

      Reply
  20. Janine Grace Maglana says

    October 3, 2020 at 7:20 pm

    Thank you so much it really helps😊

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 4, 2020 at 5:49 am

      Glad it helped, Janine!

      Reply
  21. George.T says

    October 8, 2020 at 6:21 pm

    Hi Tutor Phil,

    Just want to say that this was very informative and will definitely prove to be helpful in my future studies. One thought I had was with your introductory sentence, I have learned that it is best to describe what you see in the image vs your example which defined photography, something which is applicable to any image. Please let me know what you think!

    Thanks,
    George

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      October 8, 2020 at 8:42 pm

      Hi George.

      Here’s the reality. An intro sentence is essentially an equivalent of clearing your throat before you begin speaking. The only reason I began to teach my students to write an intro sentence is that teachers and professors usually expect it.

      That said, if you are going to write an intro, you have options.

      If your teacher tells you to do it a certain way, just do it to please her and get a good grade. The best introduction is none at all – it’s best to just state your main point out of the gate.

      The next best thing is to introduce with a statement that is more general than the thesis. That’s what we’re doing in the tutorial.

      Describing what you see in the picture doesn’t seem the best. If your reader can see the picture, then there’s no point in describing it anywhere in the essay because a picture’s worth a thousand words.

      If your reader can’t see the picture, then you have to rely on a pretty detailed description, and that should be done somewhere in the body of the essay.

      I’d say that the reader should either see the picture or be familiar with the image, such as the Mona Lisa or Disney Castle. In other words, you’re either enclosing the actual image or referring to an image the reader knows about. It seems too much to have to write a full description of an image when you can just show it.

      But anyway – back to your point – opening with a description of an image is probably not the best way to do it. But if your teacher wants that – just do it. Or, perhaps you can find a creative way to say something about the image that is more general than your thesis.

      There are no hard rules about introductions. You’re just clearing your throat 🙂

      Hope this helps,

      TP

      Reply
  22. Ailyn says

    January 14, 2021 at 10:01 am

    Thank you!
    This would probably help me a lot in my studies. 😊

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      January 14, 2021 at 11:20 am

      It sure will!
      🙂
      TP

      Reply
  23. Ali Aljibori says

    March 4, 2021 at 9:06 pm

    Hi George. What an excellent example you have written!
    I’d like to know if you do private tutoring by an chance through zoom call?

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      March 5, 2021 at 1:51 pm

      Hi Ali!
      Yes, I do. My name is Phil, though 🙂
      Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  24. Christiano F. says

    May 30, 2021 at 7:47 am

    This was really helpful! Thanks for all the tips, I have to write a 500 word essay based on a man standing on a mountain.

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      June 4, 2021 at 6:17 am

      You’re welcome, Christiano!

      Reply
  25. Prapulla says

    August 30, 2021 at 3:35 pm

    Excellent. this post is very useful for effective analysis

    Reply
    • TutorPhil says

      August 31, 2021 at 11:11 am

      Glad it helped!

      TP

      Reply
  26. Chadwique says

    February 6, 2022 at 11:18 pm

    Hello, the information that has been displayed here is a great help to everyone who wants to be good at analyzing images. I appreciate it so much.

    Reply

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