Unforgettable Images
This is a transcript from Visium: The Secret Language of Images. Listen to the episode below:
What makes a great image work?
Think of a few famous ones. Maybe the Afghan Girl staring straight at the camera, or Muhammad Ali towering over his opponent after a knockout. Maybe it’s those construction workers eating lunch on a steel beam high above New York. It could be a painting, like the Girl with a Pearl Earring, or a movie moment, like Neo stopping bullets in The Matrix.
Why do these images stay with us? What makes them connect, not just on a personal level, but with millions of other people? If you’re a filmmaker, photographer, or any kind of visual artist, the answer isn't just interesting—it can be very useful.
Maybe some of these images became famous just because they captured the right moment in history. But plenty of other images were made at the same time, and most of them faded away.
So what makes the difference? Maybe the artists behind these images tapped into some hidden ingredient, a rare mineral or metal like uranium, but for vision. I’d call that Visium.
My name is Tal Lazar, and this is “Visium”, where we explore images, and figure out what makes them work. In this first series, we’ll focus on images in movies.
Irving Penn once said, “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”
From the moment we're born, images surround us—books, magazines, billboards, TV, and all kinds of screens. We’ve come a long way since The Great Train Robbery, one of the first films to tell a story back in 1903. According to legend, when a cowboy aimed his gun at the camera, the audience panicked and ran out of the theater.
Today, we’re all experts at understanding images and the clues that are hidden in them. We pick up meaning from images without even thinking about it. Take any superhero movie, and you’ll spot the classic "hero shot"—a low-angle frame that makes the character look powerful and larger-than-life.
Perhaps that angle clicks because it reminds us of childhood, when the world felt big and adults seemed so strong. This is just one example of how images can communicate ideas without words. In movies, this type of meaning can come from many different layers, like dialogue, music, images or even the contrast between them.
Think of a weak character—someone like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. In a movie, the camera could hint that this character is actually powerful, no matter what they say. Even the scarecrow can become strong with a hero shot. And, as an audience, we’ll always trust what we see over what we hear. That’s why an image really can be worth a thousand words.
The connection between images and words isn't just a cliché. Images are a language—one we all understand instinctively, but only a few can speak fluently.
Think about these iconic images that tell a story. Ask ten people, and they’ll describe these pictures in almost the same way. We all feel amazed watching the construction workers having lunch high above New York, unfazed by the height. We all sense the strength in the Afghan Girl, even with the harsh reality of war and displacement.
Communicating something like strength—so that everyone sees and feels it the same way—is not so easy to do. That’s a type of challenge any storyteller faces. To express their stories, musicians play music, authors write words, and visual storytellers create images.
But, unlike musicians and authors, when filmmakers learn how to create images, the focus always seems to start with gear—like cameras and lenses—and not the storytelling. No one teaches music by talking about microphones or writing a book by focusing on paper quality. But with photography, we start with cameras, lenses and lighting.
This mindset comes from art history. The earliest images weren’t about self-expression; they served a purpose. Cave paintings of animals and hunters weren’t created to make caves prettier—experts believe these images were part of rituals. In ancient Egypt, tomb paintings weren’t there to make a space look nice but to guide the dead in the afterlife.
When art has a function, the technical side takes center stage. Think about wallpaper—designed with patterns that blend together perfectly. Creating wallpaper requires precision. But we are not here to talk about wallpaper.
Visual storytelling sits in a unique place, balancing the practical need to communicate something to the audience, with the artist’s desire to express something deeper.
Irving Penn once said, “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”
This quote is pure Visium. For now, only one word in this quote matters, and that word is: effective. Look up a photograph by Irving Penn. You’ll find some of the most iconic portraits of the 20th century, depicting the likes of Picasso and Miles Davis. Pick a photograph and ask yourself: is it effective?
You’ll discover that it’s not possible to answer this question without taking one step back and finding what the effect is supposed to be. The first question, then, should be: what is the intention?
Only after figuring out the intention behind an image can we tell if its effective in delivering it. In his portraits, Irving Penn was able to capture something deep in his subjects. It shines a light on the true purpose of a portrait: not just to show that a person was standing in front of a camera, but to say something about them. Look up Irving Penn’s portrait of Miles Davis’, his eyes closed as he is hugging his trumpet. This portrait captures his love of music.
According to Penn, a good photograph is effective only if it achieves its purpose. This gives us a roadmap to learn how images work: first find the purpose, or the intention. Then find if the image is effective by looking at the choices made by the artist. What is the image about, always comes before how was the image created.
Indirectly, Penn also gave visual artists a way to collaborate better. Anyone who went to art school or works in a profession that requires collaboration like filmmaking knows that its difficult to give feedback for someone else’s work. It’s safe to say that most artists didn’t chose their career for the convenient lifestyle or the money. They choose it because they have no choice, something in them compels them to do it.
Now, lets say that you meet such an artist, and that you think their work is pretty bad. How would you give them feedback? In most cases we just avoid doing that, but in a collaboration there is no escape.
It’s easy to offend an artist who puts a lot of themselves in their work. But Irving Penn found a way to help. First, remember that images in movies are not created for individuals, they are created for an audience. That’s why personal taste doesn’t matter in this case, images don’t need to be beautiful, or popular. They just need to achieve their purpose, to be effective. An image can be effective, even if we disagree with the artist’s intention.
Start by figuring out what the image is saying. Just pay attention to your reaction as a viewer. What catches your eye first? If there are multiple characters, who stands out the most? Then, think about how the image makes you feel. Does it bring back a memory or evoke an idea? Altogether, these clues can help you understand what the image is about. And, you don’t need to be an expert to find them. The clues are within the observer.
Take the photo of construction workers above New York City. Who’s the main character? Even with about ten people in the frame, the image does not focus on any one of them, as if there is no main character. And that alone is worth noting.
Now, imagine you’re the photographer, and someone gives you this feedback. Let’s say you intended for there to be no single main character. It would feel great knowing the image came across as planned. But even if you wanted a clear main character and the viewer didn’t see it that way, that’s useful feedback. By asking a few more people, you’d quickly get a sense of how your image is received by an audience.
Filmmakers at every level pay close attention to how their audience reacts to their films, even if they don’t follow every suggestion. Even big-budget movies go through test screenings to see how their characters and stories come across. This isn’t about technical details—it’s simply about how people experience moving images.
To make this practical, I suggested that you follow this method when observing images that you want to study.
Before thinking about how an image was made, start with what it’s about. Doing it the other way around leads nowhere. If we notice that the construction workers photo was shot with a wide-angle lens, what does that really tell us? There are plenty of reasons to use a wide lens, and the most obvious—capturing a wide view—is the least interesting. We’ll dig into that later.
To connect storytelling with visual choices like selecting a lens, start with the story itself. Forget the equipment and technique for a moment. If you’re experienced with cameras, this can be tough. But if you’re just starting out, that actually gives you an advantage—you’re less likely to get caught up in the technical side too soon.
Only after figuring out what the image is about can we move on to the visual choices, like selecting a lens. So, if none of the construction workers in the photo is the main character, and a wide lens was used, is there a link? Could the choice of lens help create that effect? Now we’re getting somewhere.
We finish this first episode with a simple, practical way to get to the root of how images work. First, figure out who or what it’s about and sum it up as briefly as possible. Then, identify two or three visual choices that reinforce that meaning. Do this enough times, and you’ll start recognizing patterns—this is the foundation of visual language.
If you’ve made it this far, you’ll probably enjoy the next episodes too. Consider subscribing, leaving a review, and joining this journey as we explore storytelling itself and the many ways visual artists use images to express it. No matter the story or technique, we’ll always start by understanding the purpose of an image before looking at how it was made.
I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you have a great example that wasn’t mentioned or a question you’d like answered, feel free to reach out—just email tal@cinematicimpact.com . You can also check out my book at TheLanguageofCinematography.com.
Thanks for spending time with me today. Goodbye!