The reading and the superlong video were interesting to see and read since it brought to light some things that I have thought about but hadn’t fully understood or acknowledged before. Visual rhetoric and visual representations have a great effect on our decision making both in the context of being subtle and blatantly obvious. The placement and visualization of advertisements, photos of destinations, photos of food, and much more can play a role in what individual choices we make, and what we think we make on our own.
“Clearly, the lighting, composition, and angle of the image clearly make a big difference in our reaction to the image and potentially our willingness to take action and respond to the image…”
Compositions of lighting, color, and clear images provide a clear understanding of what you’re getting yourself into. Whether or not that picture can live up to the expectations, it still impacts your decision making. Visuals in the context of visual rhetoric matter so much to consumers when using the main elements of art; shape, color, texture, lines, size, and space to put information in an orderly fashion for the viewer.
This isn’t just integrated into food but rather travel as well. The internet and television contain a plethora of advertisements for travel, and whether it lives up to the image advertised, they still use the same principles that are mentioned in the article. Picture this, a beach with fine white sand on the coastline, and not a flaw in sight of the picture, and seems like a perfect attractive moment for a destination.
While not all pictures can live up to the image they present, but the ones that can are beautiful places to the eye of the beholder, while a picture can “tell a thousand words” a person’s observations determine the individual experience. In the video the guide has the tourists sketch the church that they are looking at to use visualization as a way to notice more details than you would with just pointing a camera at the object.
“Ruskin stressed that the point of sketching had nothing to do with…it was about training ourselves to notice rather than to look…we retain durable memories of the beautiful things we see in modern tourism”
One reply on “Visual Rhetoric in Tourism”
I really like how you used pictures to compare food and travel. If an image is taken properly it can be used to create a sense of attraction or desire towards the object in the picture. Something that stood out to me is when you said to picture “a beach with fine white sand on the coastline.” This visual already has a way of making you want to travel to a beach. It also proves how alluring visuals can be