Framing Although the photograph has no actual
lines as a frame, the use of color (which of course
cannot be seen in the black-and-white version of the
photo reproduced here) sets it apart from the whiteness
of the Web page on which it is placed and
frames it as a separate item. Also, the colors
within the image fall within the white-creambrown
spectrum of the palette, creating a continuity
that holds the pictorial elements together. The
text sits directly below the photograph with the
slogan “Paying Careful Attention to Details,” acting
as the photograph’s caption and the lead-in to the
paragraph itself.
Modality Photographs, by the nature of their technology,
suggest a reality that is far stronger than that
of drawings, illustrations, and paintings. As Shapiro
notes, “Of all modes of representation, [photography]
is the one most easily assimilated into the discourses
of knowledge and truth for it is thought to
be an unmediated simulacrum, a copy of what we
considered the ‘real’” (1988, p. 124). In fact, we find
photographs to be so real that Shapiro believes they
pacify us to the point of unquestioning acceptance
of societal norms and conventions. In Figure 12,
therefore, the producer of the image uses the photograph’s
high modality so that the ideal will be depicted,
not as “what might be,” but as “what is” (that
is, the truth).
In sum, the systems of the compositional metafunction
in Figure 12 play a significant role in integrating the two
other metafunctions so that the rhetorical messages of the
image and text combine almost seamlessly and come
across “loud and clear” to the viewer.