.:COMPOSITIONAL LEVEL:.
The third stage of our model of analysis is the study of the compositional level. To continue with the metaphor of language, we now explore how the previously described elements are related from a syntactic viewpoint, to form an internal structure in the image. This structure holds a strictly operational, not ontological, value for us, since it is not a factor that lies hidden below the surface of the text.
For reasons of economy in the analysis, we have opted to include here the so-called elements of scale (perspective, depth, proportion) and the dynamic elements (tension, rhythm) which, although of a clearly quantitative (the former) and temporal (the latter) nature, as indicated by Justo Villafañe (1988) they have considerable effects on what is known as the plastic composition of the image. In addition, this level also monographically analyses how space and time in the representation are articulated. These two variables are ontologically indissoluble and for practical reasons are examined independently. Reflections on these elements of space and time in the photographic text are made through questions that range from the very specific on the physical variables of the space and time of the photograph, to other more abstract questions such as the “habitability” of the space or the subjective time that the image constructs.
POINTS TO ANALYSE