Picture Descriptions in English

A picture description should always provide an overall understanding about the picture in hand. Your sentences should focus on the important elements of the picture. Thereby you can make your description more meaningful and complete.

You can follow some easy steps to achieve this purpose. You can also make use of your grammar knowledge to be tactful in constructing a lengthy sentence as required by the examiner. For example, you can use Adjectives and Adverbs to further describe the visual information in the picture. Let’s learn the techniques of writing a meaningful picture description.

You can follow the following basic sentence patterns.

1. Introduction of the picture/ Photo

This is a picture of a ...........
It is a picture of a ...........

2. What is in the picture ?

There is a ........... (Singular)
There are ........... (Plural)

The tense used here is Simple Present Tense.

Verbs used :-
“is” – for singular
“are” – for plural

3. What do they have?

She has a ........... (Singular)
They have ........... (Plural)

The tense used here is Simple Present Tense.

Verbs used :-
“has” – for singular
“have” – for plural

4. What are they doing? /What is happening?

She is reading ...........
They are reading...........

The tense used here is Simple Present Tense.

The tense used here is Present Continuous Tense.

Verbs used :- (helping verb + Present Participle)
“is reading” – for singular
“are reading” – for plural

5. Concluding Sentence

The children are having a nice time.

The tense used here is Present Continuous Tense.

Verbs used :- (helping verb + Present Participle)

How do we make the sentence lengthier?

When describing the picture, we can add more adjectives and adverbs to be more descriptive. It helps create longer sentences.

With a suitable adjective “children’s ”:- This is a picture of a children’s park.

With a suitable adverb “comfortably”:- A man and a woman are sitting comfortably on a bench.

With a suitable adjective “small”:- A small boy is playing on a swing.
With a suitable adverb “happily”:- A small boy is playing happily on a swing.

Let’s try to write a small description of this picture.

• This is a picture of a children’s park.
• There are many children playing in the park.
• A man and a woman are sitting on a bench.
• The man has a bag in his hand.
• There is a tree behind the bench and two monkeys are playing on it.
• A small boy is playing on a swing.
• A woman is feeding some ducks.
• Some boys are playing cricket at the far end of the park.
• A boy is walking with his pet dog.
• Everyone is having a nice time at the park.

• It is a picture of a bed room.
• The door is closed and there is no one in the room.
• There is a bed near the windows.
• There is a map of Sri Lanka hanging on the wall.
• There is a bat and ball near the door.
• There are some clothes hanging on the wall hanger.
• There is also a study table in the middle of the room.
• There is a small water bottle, some books and pens on the table.
• There is a small suit-case next to the table.
• The room looks neat and clean.