Interpreting Physical and Human Features – Interpretation of Photographs (Senior 6 Geography) | Ganzaa

Interpretation of Photographs

Lessons

Senior 6 · Geography

Interpretation of Photographs

4 lessons

Lesson 2 of 4

Interpreting Physical and Human Features

22 min

From seeing to reasoning

Anyone can list what is in a photograph. Interpretation goes further, in three steps. First identify a feature ("a paved road"). Then describe it: where it is, how large, what pattern it makes ("it curves across the middle ground from left to right"). Finally infer what it suggests, and give the evidence ("the large round tanks beside it are probably for storage, since tanks of that shape and size are usually built beside a main road for easy delivery"). Examiners reward the last step most, but only when the evidence is on the photograph.

Definition

Photograph interpretation: identifying the features on a photograph, describing them, and working out what they tell us about the area.

Inference: a reasoned conclusion drawn from evidence rather than seen directly. Example: many unroofed walls in a new housing area are evidence that the settlement is growing.

How to recognise features: the elements of interpretation

Air-photo interpreters use seven clues, which work on ground photographs too.

Element	What to look at	Example
Size	Size compared with things you know	A building ten times the size of the houses around it is not a house
Shape	Outline of the feature	Round white tanks; rectangular fields; the smooth curve of a main road
Tone and colour	Light or dark, and the colour	Bright green growing crops; red-brown bare soil and murram roads
Texture	Smooth or rough surface	Smooth grass compared with the rough crowns of a forest
Pattern	How features are arranged	Houses in a line along a road; crops planted in rows
Shadow	Shape and length of shadows	A tall tower casts a long, thin shadow
Site and association	Where it is and what it is found with	A playing field beside a group of long classroom-like buildings suggests a school

A checklist of features

	Look for
Physical	Relief (hills, valleys, plains, steepness of slopes); drainage (rivers, lakes, swamps); natural vegetation; weather at the time (cloud, haze, shadows); bare rock and soil
Human	Settlement (type, pattern, building materials); farming and land use; transport (paved roads, murram roads, footpaths); industry and trade; services (schools, churches, health centres); signs of change (building sites, new roads)

Definition

Settlement patterns describe how buildings are arranged:

Nucleated (clustered): buildings grouped closely around a centre, such as a crossroads or a market.
Linear: buildings strung out in a line along a road, a ridge or a river.
Dispersed (scattered): single buildings spread out, each usually on its own plot of farmland.

Worked example 1: physical features of the outskirts photograph

Feature	Section	Description and evidence
Hills	Background, full width	A long line of hills with steep, gullied slopes, blurred by haze
Broad, flat valley floor	Middle ground, centre and right	An even, bright green surface with very few buildings on it
Gently sloping land	Foreground and right middle ground	Rises gradually from the valley floor, covered with fields and buildings
Vegetation	Throughout	No natural forest: scattered trees, lines of trees along roads, clumps of banana plants between houses
Weather	Background	Haze and a grey sky; the fields and grass are green, which suggests a wet period

No river can be seen clearly. A thin winding line of darker vegetation across the valley floor may mark a stream, but at this distance that is an inference, not an observation.

Worked example 2: human features of the same photograph

Settlement. In the left foreground and middle ground, houses stand singly among fields: a dispersed pattern. In the right foreground, low buildings crowd together along straight murram roads: a nucleated centre with linear growth along the roads. Most roofs are metal sheets or tiles.
Growth. In the foreground, on the line between the left and centre sections, there are several blocks of walls with no roofs yet, beside cleared bare ground: buildings under construction. The settlement is expanding.
Farming. Small rectangular plots, some bare and red-brown, others green with crops, and banana plants around the houses: small-scale mixed farming.
Transport. A paved road with a gentle curve crosses the middle ground; red murram roads and footpaths link the houses to it.
Industry or trade. A group of large white cylindrical tanks stands beside the paved road in the left middle ground. Their shape and their site by a main road suggest storage (of fuel or water, for example), but the photograph cannot tell us what they hold.

Warning

Don't claim more than the photograph shows. "The valley floor is used for rice" cannot be seen here; "the valley floor is flat, green and almost free of buildings" can. Use words such as "probably", "suggests" and "may" for every inference, and give the evidence. Names, dates and places come from the caption, not from the picture.

Your turn: a discussion photograph

Study the Kigali hills photograph above with the checklist. Notice where the houses are and where the trees are, and think about why they are arranged like that. The practice questions below ask about it, and the last lesson of this unit returns to the question of why.

Tip

Exam technique. Write each point as feature + location + evidence: "Dense settlement (centre, middle ground): small buildings packed closely on the valley floor." Two developed points earn more than five bare names.

UCR Library: "Introduction to Aerial Photo Interpretation". A university library tutorial on how people interpret aerial photographs. Listen for the clues it uses to recognise features and compare them with the seven elements in the table above.

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Practice

Practice (questions 1 to 3 use the outskirts photograph; 4 to 6 the Kigali hills photograph)

Name two physical and two human features on the outskirts photograph and give the section of each.
Describe the settlement pattern in the right foreground and suggest one reason for it.
Give two pieces of evidence that the settlement in the outskirts photograph is growing.
Describe the relief shown in the Kigali hills photograph.
Compare the land use on the steep slopes with that on the valley floor.
What was the weather like when the Kigali hills photograph was taken? Give your evidence.
A student wrote: "The outskirts photograph shows a rice-growing valley." Evaluate this statement.

Show answersHide answers

Physical: hills (background), flat valley floor (centre and right middle ground), gently sloping land (foreground). Human: paved road (middle ground), dispersed houses (left foreground), white tanks (left middle ground), fields (foreground).
Nucleated, with lines of buildings along the murram roads. The roads give access to transport and customers, so shops and houses cluster along them.
Walls without roofs (buildings under construction) next to cleared bare ground in the foreground, on the line between the left and centre sections; new-looking buildings at the edges of the built-up area; a well-made paved road.
A valley between two steep-sided hills, which fill the left and right thirds of the middle ground and foreground, with a distant ridge topped by tall buildings in the left and centre middle ground. The top third is sky.
The steep slopes are mostly under trees and scrub with few buildings; the valley floor and lower slopes are densely built up.
Fine and sunny: a mainly clear blue sky with a few small white (cumulus) clouds, bright light and clear views into the distance.
Not justified from the photograph alone. The valley floor is flat and green and has few buildings, which fits wet farmland, but the crops cannot be identified at this distance; it could equally be grass or other crops. A map, a closer photograph or fieldwork would be needed.

Summary

Interpret in three steps: identify, describe, infer with evidence.
Use the seven elements (size, shape, tone, texture, pattern, shadow, association) to recognise features.
Settlement patterns: nucleated, linear, dispersed. Hedge every inference and never claim what cannot be seen.

Sources and credits

A View of the Outskirts of Kigali From Secretary Kerry's Plane: U.S. Department of State, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Kigali hills: Alex shema, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The text, tables, worked examples and exercises were written by Ganzaa.

Video: "Introduction to Aerial Photo Interpretation", UCR Library, embedded from YouTube.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1From seeing to reasoning

2How to recognise features: the elements of interpretation

3A checklist of features

Your turn: a discussion photograph

From seeing to reasoning

How to recognise features: the elements of interpretation

A checklist of features