How do you describe a picture?

Question

Let's say a beautiful woman was smiling in a picture, and I need to describe it in a few sentences. Should I use past tense or simple present?

"She looks beautiful in the picture. Don't you think her smile is amazing?"

or

"She looked beautiful in the picture. Hey, did you see that? Her smile was amazing, man!"

Clive · Accepted Answer

Use Simple Present and Present Continuous..

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousLet's say a beautiful woman was smiling in a picture, and I need to describe it in a few sentences. Should I use past tense or simple present?

If you are describing it to someone who is looking at the picture at the same time as you are looking at it and describing it, there is hardly any way that the past would make sense. You use the present tenses for that.

If you are describing it after you have seen it and it is not present to refer to, you can use either the present or the past tenses. The present describes how it looks now under the reasonable assumption that of course it looks the same as when you saw it. The past describes how it looked at the moment, now past, that you saw it. Both descriptions describe the same thing, so it doesn't matter which tense you use.

CJ

How do you describe a picture?

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