INNETONKA, Minn. - Surrounded by schoolchildren, Vice President Al Gore walked onto the field at Hopkins North Junior High School and watched students launch rockets into the blue sky.
Gore, Governor Jesse Ventura, and the children all shaded their eyes from the sun and pointed excitedly at the homemade rockets as they blasted off and then gently floated back to earth with their miniature parachutes trailing behind.
For the vice president, it was a picture-perfect setting. Photos of the scene appeared in newspapers across the country the next day.
As Gore and Governor George W. Bush of Texas compete for the presidency, they are waging a daily battle to get their message across in pictures and to portray themselves as caring and concerned by surrounding themselves with children, the elderly, women, and minorities.
''Since the voters aren't paying attention, the likelihood that the visual images are the only thing getting through is pretty high,'' said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
Officials from both campaigns say they realize that most voters don't read long newspaper or magazine articles about their proposals or ideas, and that most don't care much about the presidential race so far in advance of Election Day.
''A lot more people, frankly, look at the pictures than read the stories,'' said Thomas D. Rath, an adviser to the Bush campaign. ''You can make some of these points exactly that way.''
Campaign officials also say that for all the speeches, press releases, and news conferences they give, reporters usually write or say what they want.
''We have no control over what's written in the stories, so we have to try to tell the story ourselves,'' said Matt Bennett, a senior White House official who spent two years overseeing many of these details as Gore's trip director.
Over time, the images add up, creating a perception about the candidates in voters' minds.
When Bush went to Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., to propose changes for Social Security, he was framed by a mock blue-and-white Social Security card hanging on the wall behind him with the words ''Saving Social Security.'' Old people and young adults sat near him as he made his pitch.
''It's a way to capture in one click a 20-minute speech,'' said Ari Fleischer, a Bush spokesman. ''If a photographer takes one picture, the picture should summarize the governor's message.''
Throughout history, photographs of politicians have captured a moment that comes to symbolize the way they are perceived. When Governor Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts was photographed in 1988 wearing a helmet in a tank, he was ridiculed, and the image became a symbol of an off-kilter campaign for president.
When President Jimmy Carter could not finish a race he was running, photographers caught him looking bent over and dehydrated as two Secret Service agents helped him away. The image came to represent a struggling presidency.
And when President Gerald R. Ford stumbled down the steps of Air Force One, both he and his administration were viewed as klutzy, despite Ford's background as an athlete.
This year, the candidates for president are trying to prevent unflattering images from taking hold and they hope to undo some ideas that already exist.
That's where the children come in. For Gore, children make him seem more human and less stiff. For Bush, they underscore the compassion he said he feels as a conservative, rather than the remote, blue-suit feel of previous Republican candidates.
''They make Bush look more inclusive and more tolerant, which is probably the two most important messages he can convey,'' said Darrel M. West, a political science professor at Brown University. ''He needs to reassure suburban voters that he's an open, tolerant individual, and people like soccer moms may not agree with all of his policy positions, but they want to make sure he's not an extremist.''
Rath said it is not by accident that Bush has been photographed in urban areas and in schools, with African-Americans and Latinos, children and senior citizens.
''Beyond what he has said, how he has been seen and the settings in which he has been seen carries the message that this is a very different kind of campaign,'' Rath said.
But Gore campaign officials said Bush's policies and beliefs contradict the message he is trying to convey.
''Pictures cannot hide flaws in your record,'' said Mark Fabiani, Gore's deputy campaign manager. ''No matter how many women and children you surround yourself with, if your record on the environment, or education or health care is not sufficient, it will catch up with you. Eventually, people will see the photos as phony.''
A sizable portion of each campaign is devoted to making sure the candidate looks good in pictures. There are the advance people who set up the events and the message people who craft the slogans that grace the posters hanging in the background.
Advance professionals across the political spectrum have certain tricks they employ. One, pioneered by the Clinton White House and copied by the Bush campaign, is to use a repeating message in small letters on a poster behind the candidate. That also reduces the likelihood of another problem known as ''bannerhead,'' when a giant letter looks like it's sticking out of the candidate's head.
When larger lettering is used, it almost always includes a gerund in the slogan to give a sense of movement or action. For example, Bush is ''Saving Social Security'' while Gore is ''Improving Our Schools'' and ''Strengthening Social Security.''
Campaign staff members also say they try to minimize nose-pickers, yawners, and people standing behind the candidate looking bored. To do that, candidates almost always stand a few feet in front of the people positioned behind them. The result is that photographers and television cameras show the candidate in sharp focus, with everyone else in slightly blurry relief.
''You've got to think like a producer or a cameraman,'' Bennett said. ''You look through your imaginary camera and think, `What's going to appear on people's screens?'''
