John
What tense should I use when I am talking about a photo.? (present, or past)
Last winter, my wife took a picture of my boy and me, where(in this picture) my boy was (is) smiling delightfully in glee.
In the above example, I just talked about something about the picture, what tense should I use? or what's a preferable expression?
2014年7月18日 07:58
回答 · 2
2
If you are telling a story about when you took the picture, then describe the events in the photo in the past tense ("in the picture, my boy was smiling... "). If you are looking at the photo now, you use present tense ("As you can see in this picture, the boy is smiling...").
By the way, "delight" and "glee" are synonyms that mean the same thing, so you can't use one as an adjective for the other. The boy is either "smiling gleefully" or he is "smiling delightfully."
2014年7月18日
2
We tend to use Present Continuous to describe photographs. We are wearing ..., I am holding ..., He is smiling ....
The logic is that the photograph captures a kind of permanent 'now', a frozen moment.
2014年7月18日
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