Visual Rhetoric Images
photographs copyright, Wm. Rogers
Sample 2—Picture: Pineapple Walk
Back to main
page // To next
visual rhetoric page

Text:
You take "Pineapple Walk" to get from
the Heights down to the river;
then you can row yourself across the river in one of the small rowboats
tied up on the riverbank for that purpose. When you get across the
river just tie up the borrowed boat on the far side of the river for
someone to eventually use in the reverse direction.
Analysis:
Of course following the above directions would not be as easy as the
message implies, and it would not be safe to row across the river
(actually there are no rowboats provided for river crossings). But
the picture and the text combine to create a fictional image within a
real setting. Pineapple Walk is real even if a bit short in length, the
river is real, the Heights
neighborhood is real, the city across the river is real. But, the photo
has been altered, using a computer program, to look more like a drawing
or
painting.
The picture, by itself, does not suggest anything about rowing across
the
river. Yes, the text without the picture could be legitimate if it
referred to some remote location where rowboats were actually used in
place of a bridge or ferry. With the picture and text taken
together, however, there is a story-line, that some might believe true.
And even
the impression that one could just step
into
a rowboat on
the river at the bottom of the path is false. The drop from the
promenade just below the path is likely more than 100 feet
to the riverbank which in turn is shielded
by industrial properties.
[See chapters 8, 11, and 13 (on community
campaigns)]