For example, in London you can travel around on the tube or by foot and be surrounded by posters and advertisements for theatre shows, exhibitions and concerts etc. What does this tell you about London? The first thought which comes to mind is that London is a very cultural place with lots of attractions to enjoy.
By contrast, I went back to my hometown of Chihuahua in Mexico at Christmas time. For a city of its size, there is a very strong artistic movement which can include older, established artists (whose reputation and connections can get them access to the most upmarket exhibition galleries) and young, up and coming artists who are not from a privileged backgrounds who have to publicise themselves in other ways or use other means of expressing themselves. This is commonly through graffiti (or urban art if you like) some of which I photographed during my stay:
As well as being works of art in themselves, these paintings are in fact social commentaries about local and national society reflecting on hopelessness of the young, history and decline of moral values. Therefore, these images are giving a stronger message about the locality than any postcard photo will ever do.
The lecture also discussed how text can totally change an image. Where it is a portrait, text can change our view of that person. It occurred to me that the prison mug shot photos were the most striking example of this. If you then take prison mugshots of celebrities, I think the effect is even greater because we assume so much knowledge of that person due to their fame.
I have found some examples of celebrity prison mugshots to show the point.
Possibly with the exception of the Michael Jackson photo, if you put your hand across the prisoner number on the top two photos, they look like conventional snapshots. If you now remove your hand, don't you now feel differently about the photo and the person. A little less sympathetic maybe?
No comments:
Post a Comment