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In this particular advanced English lesson, we're looking at advanced adjectives and these advanced adjectives are used to describe images in particular, photographs, paintings, whatever it might be so advanced adjectives used to describe images and I've got a dozen of them, that's 12, okay and I'll go through them and hopefully I'll be able to give you an example of when you might be able to use them.
First powerful, a powerful image, well a powerful image is something that really leaves a lasting impression on your mind.
Yeah you see a powerful image of a old lady of 85 or 86 standing in front of a policeman dressed in battle uniform when there's a demonstration on the streets and the woman marches forward to confront these police officers to ask why are they blocking the route and why can people not demonstrate peacefully on the streets so that would be a very powerful image.
I saw one many many months ago about an old lady confronting riot police in Belarus when the people were demonstrating on the streets there so that would be described as a very powerful image.
Humorous. Well something humorous is something of course is going to make you laugh it's going to make you smile and it's going to give you a good feeling so for example a cartoon in a newspaper so it could be a satirical cartoon that is taking some fun or poking fun at the government or a prime minister or a president or that the king or the queen of that particular country and if it's very very humorous then we will always laugh and we can remember these type of cartoons and these satirical cartoonists are really really good they're very clever they see a situation and they apply a cartoon to
that now of course what I find humorous you may not find humorous and what you find humorous somebody else might find a little bit insulting so have to be really really careful as to what we do that we don't do it intentionally to insult somebody but we just look at the humorous side so a cartoon.
Raw. R -A -W raw. So a raw image is something that's not properly or fully processed.
So if you go out and you take a photograph or beautiful or what you feel is a beautiful landscape view of mountains or valleys or rivers, then in its raw state, it probably looks good, but perhaps it needs some added photoshopping or some touch ups to make it look really, really perfect.
So raw in its raw state is the first state that you happen to see.
Number four meaningful, well something meaningful is something that gives you some idea that there's something behind it there's a reason why this particular image has been taken and meaningful so you need to feel that it's not just done for the sake of hanging on a wall to make you feel warm but there's that some deeper meaning to the photograph, some deeper meaning to the sketch, something meaningful, something that is has got some depth to it.
Okay well another adjective and it's two words together well composed and when we write it you'll see it here on the screen with a hyphen, well composed.
So if you're looking at an image that's well composed you could imagine seeing let's say a country scene okay you've got a cottage you've got fields and you've got mountains as well so it's well composed if you've got the picture of the cottage at the beginning or the front or the in the for front of the foreground of the the painting of the photograph so it's in good proportion and then surrounded by a green field with a fence and then in the background you've got these mountains maybe capped with snow or lined with trees so everything is in specific proportion so we could describe that as a really
well composed picture or well composed painting so everything is in proportion rather than people in the painting that are a little bit out of shape compared to the rest of the items or articles or things that are in that painting or picture.
So, something well composed, there's good definition to the picture, good definition to the photograph, so you can see very clearly your little cottage surrounded by roses, behind it the field or the fence and whatever's growing in the field, and then at the very back in the background you've got the range of mountains or the mountain range and the peaks are capped with snow.
So that would be a good description of something that is well -composed.
Number six, something that's iconic.
Well, we can all think of images that we have seen over the years that are iconic, and they're iconic because they last with us a very, very long time.
I remember the iconic picture of the captain of the English football team being carried by his colleagues when they won the World Cup in 1966, the first and only time that England won the World Cup.
But it's an iconic photograph because he's holding the trophy in his hands, he's been for me an iconic image.
But there could be other iconic images there could be photograph of the twin towers those of us who remember them before they were unfortunately blown up but then these are iconic images or indeed the unfortunate situation when they were blown up that image will last with me for a lifetime so that again is something iconic.
Number eight or number seven i evocative.
Something that's evocative is something that gets your emotions, gets you thinking about it.
So lots of images may not be evocative for everybody but they can be.
So something evocative gets you thinking, gets you feeling.
So perhaps it's a flood or and there are rushing waters coming down the streets.
So that really gets you thinking about it.
Perhaps it's the the remains of a thunderstorm or a huge hurricane that has come through a part of America and has left houses and properties destroyed.
Those can be quite evocative images.
These are all something that gets you thinking, gets you feeling, gets you wondering as to exactly what happened next or what would you do in that particular situation.
Get the blood flowing.
And in some cases, it can get the blood boiling a little bit and people can get a little bit angry or aggressive about certain images.
Cluttered, well cluttered means when there's a lot to something, there's a lot of mess.
If your bedroom is cluttered or your office is cluttered, you've got papers everywhere, books everywhere, clothes everywhere, you can't really move.
So a cluttered image is something that's not so clear, yeah?
So, I often look at these paintings by Picasso and to me they would be very cluttered.
There's lots of things in it.
Looking at images of a goat or trumpet or a piano or whatever and they're all combined in one particular painting and so there's a lot happening in those particular images and to me they're extremely cluttered so I like things to be a little bit more defined.
So cluttered. Bleak, a bleak image is something dull, something that shows that there's no warmth or it's very wild.
For example a photograph or a picture of a wet December day when the wind is blowing the rain is coming down there's no color in the sky there's a gray gray background of dark clouds, there's no flowers because it's the winter time that would be a very very bleak image yeah okay or indeed an image of a overcrowded city where there are just lines and lines of lines of tall buildings of these high -rise apartment blocks all grey and dull against the grey sky in the background, that to me would also be a bleak image, something that's repetitive or a bit repetitive.
So image is something to repetitive means over and over again, or perhaps something that we've seen time and time again.
So there's no difference to it, it looks the same as something else, yeah.
So a look at a beach or a line of traffic or something on the ocean this could all be a little bit repetitive because we've seen these images time and time again.
Number eleven, flawless.
Well flawless means without error or without mistakes.
Something almost perfection.
Not sure what the definition of perfection is for everybody because it it means different things but a flawless image with something that you can't really find fault with so when you look at it it just looks like pure beauty yeah a flawless image for me when i look at a flawless image that iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe that looks to me flawless it's perfect the perfect smile for somebody yeah flawless or the a picture of the statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower, flawless as a perfect structure, no problems with it, no difficulties, really good, interesting, exciting architecture.
And then finally something that looks elaborate, number 12 looks elaborate, an elaborate image.
Well it's something adorned with jewellery, so a photograph or picture of a crown, you know a queen or king's crown would be very elaborate, or if you saw the funeral of the Queen of England, there were lots of elaborate images taken from the Queen's funeral when her coffin was lying in state inside a Westminster Abbey surrounded by these soldiers who were dressed in a certain military attire that was suitable for the occasion.
This could be described in my opinion as extremely elaborate, yeah.
So the coffin very elaborate, the Queen's Crown very elaborate and the uniforms worn by the different soldiers from different parts of the military, again extremely elaborate.
But these uniforms were particular for that particular occasion.
Okay, so we have the twelve advanced adjectives that we can use to describe images.
Now let me give them to you one more time.
Powerful, humorous, raw, meaningful, well -composed, iconic, evocative, cluttered, bleak, repetitive, adjective, flawless, and finally something that looks elaborate, something that looks elaborate.
So you've got twelve particular adjectives, advanced adjectives that are describing certain images so you can have an idea in your own mind when you visit an art gallery, you visit a museum, you're checking through different images that you see on Instagram, All of these, you can use these adjectives to describe those sort of images as what appears or what comes to your mind when you first look at them.
So practice them. In fact what would be a good idea is to look up the internet, look at certain images and see which of these words you could use to match with the images that you see and practice it that way and it's a good way for you to remember them.
And if you have any questions you need some additional help, you need some more information well then just come back to me www .englishlessonvisquipe .com very happy to hear from you.
So this is Harry wishing you goodbye for today thanks for listening and watching and remember to join me for the next lesson.
