
There are advertisements and pictures online that have a deeper meaning behind them than what you think, the small features mean so much more than what most people see them as, so the small features that you think are just there for show are actually not there just for looks.  You must uncover almost all the features in the picture or drawing so you can put all the information together and get a better look at the whole concept.  You can also look at some of the other drawings or works that the author has created, to get an idea of the type of work and their style so you can get a better feel for the image.  The photo that I am scrutinizing and breaking down is a photo for an advertisement for a movement to stop smoking cigarettes everywhere.  In this image, they try to use lots of different strategies to put bad thoughts of what smoking can do to your life in your brain and they also try to show you the reasons why smoking cigarettes are very bad and can destroy lots of wonderful things in your life.  So, this paper will be explaining and arguing for the reasons why the certain things help the all-around meaning of this photo out, and this paper will also find all the features including color, shading, texture these features will reveal the small but very meaningful ideas in this image that will support my argument.

The first thing that you notice when you look at this photo is the shading which is the first feature that I am talking about.  It looks like the cigarette is in a very dark place where the only light is pointed straight at it.  It looks like that because of the design of the shading in the background of the photo.  That effect can make a very big difference on how people will look at the image and how they will also interpret it.  The shading design could mean lots of things and there are lots of ways to interpret shading in different cultures but the focus on the shading is the darkness, because it gives you a bad feeling and also gives the image a cruel dark sense, it also makes the cigarette seem very evil or almost like a villain in the advertisement.  The fact that the cigarette is in the spotlight brings out the fear in everybody, because it is generally a fear of most people to be the spotlight of something while they are doing something that is different.

  There is another interesting feature in the background of this image.  Its texture, the look of this background is very unusual it gives us an uneasy feeling and it puts the cigarette at the center of our attention by taking away the light around it and where there is light and you can see the background it is right under the cigarette forcing you to look at the cigarette.  It could be a very old and worn down wall, but also looks like it could be on a different planet or the moon, both of those places would place a dark and negative effect in this picture it just depends on what you see when you look at the background.  If you take the background as an old wall it looks like it has little holes and craters in it which shows the condition of the wall which is very bad.  This makes us feel very uncomfortable while looking at this picture because unless you were buying old furniture for an antique, nobody would want to buy something that looks like it is old and about to fall apart when you touch it.  People are inspired to buy things because they are brand new, shiny or hasn’t ever been used before.  If you look at the background like it is the moon surface, then it will make the cigarette stand out eve more, because typically when you think of something in space it is normally weird or different than what we are used to.  Both of those background choices would give the viewer of this photo bad thoughts of cigarettes and would make them not want to smoke cigarettes.

Another very big feature in this picture is color, each color has a mental meaning that can make your brain feel a certain way depending on what your culture is.  There is not that many colors in this photo but the very few colors that are in here really give you a mental feeling of fear.  The red sparks that are burning the cigarette down are the main thing that I am getting at when talking about this feature.  Red is normally looked at as something dominant or powerful in our culture.  The whole left side of the cigarette looks good and still has color, the cigarette itself looks normal without the drawing on it.  When you look to the right side of the red spark everything is gray and looks dull and looks very plain.  This is very important because the picture is showing you that before the spark or before you smoked cigarettes everything in your life was colorful and how you wanted to your life to be.  Then after you started smoking and get addicted to cigarettes, your life turns to the gray dull side, and your life completely revolves around smoking cigarettes so it makes your life feel colorless and like you are living for one thing.  This is a big feature because when you are trying to convince lots of people why something is bad and hurting our bodies, a good way to do it is to show how it effects how you see life.  There is nobody that wants to see life as a boring day to day experience where they are constantly searching for a cigarette.  

The paper already talked about how the spark had already burnt a segment of the cigarette and was going to keep going until the cigarette was done or the spark was put out.  I put that under the color feature, but it can go in a couple of other feature categories.  In our culture, it can go in as a direction feature, because the way the cigarette is facing and the way the flame is going from left to right it makes it look like the flame is going backwards.  This would mean that as if destroying our future was enough for the cigarettes it could also mess up our past events too.  This is very big because there are lots of people that look at smoking cigarettes very badly and that can also be a factor in creating obstacles in your life or even burning bridges from the past.  Also, they could destroy a reputation that you could have been trying to make for a long time, or even cause problems dealing with a family or even a lover or close friend.

On the left side of the flame on the cigarette there is a male and female figure.  They look to be kissing or hugging each other.  Having this smaller image on the burning cigarette that will eventually will fade away is a form of contrast and realism.  It shows contrast because the man and woman holding each other show you loving emotion and gives you a warm and kind feeling, then all of the sudden you look to the right and see the red-hot sparks that are slowly burning the cigarette and the kind image away.  Having this small image on the cigarette with the flame slowly destroying it is also realism because things like cigarettes can break up any kind of relationship in your life.  This can go with the color feature because when you start smoking and addicted most of time the only thing you think of is smoking a cigarette so you can often be very mean or disrespectful to your friend or spouse when you do not get to smoke.  This is a huge feature in this picture because it shows love being broke apart and nobody wants to see that.  Everybody wants to be in a happy relationship whether that’s with friends or girlfriend or boyfriend, so it will catch lots of people’s eyes and make them think about stop smoking cigarettes.  This image does not only stand for love and relationships.  You can see clouds and the sky behind the two people in the middle.  The clouds and sky give you a certain feeling of life and living every day.  So, the image shows that not only your relationships might be destroyed but the cigarettes can also mess up your life or anything going on in your life.  And like all the other features this one will stop people from smoking because the cigarette has two people on it living and loving, but sooner or later everything is going to be destroyed and turned in to gray dull ashes.

After going over all these features in this image, I see the image a lot different than just a cigarette with a picture on it.  All the features that I talked about that are in this photo are set up very dark and it portrays the cigarette as an evil figure.  This advertisement did a good job on trying to show people why cigarettes are bad just by the looks of the image that they have.  The image would definitely scare people away from buying or smoking cigarettes because of everything that they see in this photo.
