What is This Woman Holding?

What is the visual metaphor?

When shown this most people won’t respond with anything other than “a stack of magazines”. Literal interpretations are the quickest way our conscious minds process what we see while visual metaphors slip into that space just below the threshold of awareness. We don’t consciously recognize visual narrative and visual metaphor the same way we do verbal ones. This is what makes images so powerful — and at times insidious. They can go around undressed and yet unnoticed.

In marketing and advertising you can make claims visually about a product that would be illegal if made verbally and explicitly. Like a picture of a pastoral farm on packaging for a food product that is completely artificial in its manufacturing.

So what is she holding? A baby.

The image shown is an example of visual proxy, from the classic, sensationalist book on images in advertising, “Subliminal Seduction” by Wilson Bryan Key.