Rhetorical situation: The setting in which any act of communication takes place. Rhetorical situations typically consist of a speaker, an audience, and a message. They are also connected with elements of culture (other texts, ideas, speakers, and readers, etc.).
• Appeals: The ways in which a text seeks to engage its readers. Common approaches are appeals to ethos (the credibility of the speaker), appeals to logos (the logic of the message), and appeals to pathos (the emotions).
• Rhetorical strategies: Methods of communicating the details of a message. Common strategies include narration, analysis, description, comparison, and persuasion.
• Genres: Categories used to classify, engage, and compose texts. Genres estab- lish conventions that create expectations. Texts meet and adapt these con- ventions as they deliver their messages.
• Medium: The materials and mode of transmission used to create and deliver a message.
• Text: Any item crafted by humans that communicates a message. Famil- iar texts include essays, stories, and advertisements. A number of less familiar texts (films, songs, video games, etc.) can also be analyzed rhetorically.
• Visual analysis: Examining the rhetorical dimensions of images. Visual analysis considers arrangement, balance, contrast, emphasis, cropping, size, shape, line, color, and other elements of images.
(Above terms taken directly from Chapter 7 Rhetorical Analysis)
When analyzing pictures a lot of the steps are the same. You start with a "broad" look at the image, and then you focus on the smaller details. This will lead to questions and finding rhetorical strategies for looking at the picture. Start by focusing on the medium and genre of the picture. Pay attention to the framing of the image and the use of light in the image. Look at how the elements of the picture are arranged. THe author suggests imagining a grid over the picture to help thinking about placement of specific elements. Keep a note of elements that stand out in the picture, and the focal points of the picture.
Another great section (that would be pointless to regurgitate, so I will paste it here for further use) is the author's strategies for understanding rhetorical analysis.