An image-reading apparatus that optically reads an original, includes: an illuminating section that illuminates the original with light; an imaging unit that creates pixel data on the basis of reflected light reflected from the original; a moving unit that moves the illuminating section and the imaging unit relative to the original in steps of a fixed distance in a scanning direction that points from one end of the original toward another end of the original; an illumination mode controller that, for each unit step of movement out of one entire scanning movement in the scanning direction performed by the moving unit, controls the illuminating section so that the illuminating section is made to operate in each of a plurality of illumination modes.