This is some sentences in a flyer test.
I took this photo by the lake last Saturday, Grandma. It looks lovely.
Do you know any of these people?Yes, I do. The man who’s reading the newspaper is William.
He’s wearing a nice hat.
He is, isn’t he? Grandpa knows him, I think!
Why don't they say "he was wearing a nice hat" because that was happening in the past?
Can we use the present tense to describe people in a video?
For example, "Look at you in this video! You are smiling and swimming in a bathtub".
Best Answer
You can use the past tense, if you are talking about what the person who was photographed was doing.
But normally, when you look at a picture you describe the things in the picture in the present tense. The picture doesn't change, it's always the same.
It's the same type of thing as describing what's depicted in a painting. Especially if the painting doesn't represent anybody in reality, there is no past for the people shown. Within the context of the painting itself, it's always the present.
As such, both past and present are possible:
The same also holds true of video:
The context determines if you're asking about the present content of the picture or video, or about the past experience of the person who was captured in the picture or video.