Before I get on with my own ideas (which I imagine will be influenced by years of receiving advertising messages either overtly or covertly), I have to mention an advert I saw in an estate agent shop window yesterday. It was truly shocking. They had a photograph of an elderly woman who looked like she may have had quite a lot of plastic surgery in order to look very trendy, supposedly attractive and quite funky. The advert was promoting properties that had been 'extensively refurbished'. So they used what may be an emotionally fragile and vain woman as the butt of their joke in order to promote the sort of aspirational lifestyle that their target market are after. I found it pretty revolting indeed and couldn't believe anyone thought it was a good idea - is it me, or am I just being a little too ernest? I really thought it was a dreadful, sexist, shallow and awful concept. Anyways....
Growth: spitting cells we are used to seeing in 'how to make baby' books; an older child wearing clothes that are very obviously far too small, perhaps toddler clothes, bit of a cliche but some small plants growing through the soil, used by fund management companies the world over; several shots of a shaggy dog with hair getting longer and longer until it's really long right down over its eyes to the floor; a row of human beings from very young to adult (perhaps with older people at the end showing shrinking); Jack on a cloud at the top of a beanstalk; stalactites and stalagmites; afternoon shadows; spring trees; blossom.
Excess: An overladen plate; a ship with too much stuff on it sinking; a shopping trolley full of rubbish food piled high the top; a face covered in cake and sweets and icing sugar a look of mania in the eyes and hair all over the place; a room full of gold; a room full of expensive gadgets with no where to actually sit its so full and the biggest TV you ever saw on the wall; swimming in a pool of money. I'm trying to avoid 'fat' images but they do keep popping into my head!
Crime: Prison; handcuffs; swagger and mask; police siren; jailer with keys; people running from a bank; finger print; mugshot; broken window; smashed door.
Silence:a calm ocean at dusk or dawn; a sleeping baby; a person looking smug with ear plugs in surrounded by screaming babies and children (suppose that could come under juxtaposition); abstract very pale colours; grass blowing gently in the wind - high key; a woman sleeping under water (without looking dead though...?); sitting cross legged in a yoga pose on the moon - or the top of a mountain more realistically, looking serene.
Poverty: Empty pocket (seen that in an advert); dirty old shoes on feet that look like they have lived a very hard life; obviously poor people in an obviously poor setting; I have seen dirty faced unkempt children in adverts about poverty; broken shoes and clothes; run down buildings; shanty towns; piles of money like in Weimar Germany indicating awful inflation; empty supermarket shelves like in pictures of the USSR during the 80s; fellow student, Jayne Kemp, shared an article in NG with photos by Renee C Byer which has plenty of examples such as the very worn hands holding beans; Jack and the beanstalk's beans.
An example of an image using symbolism:
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| Temptation or Eve's downfall or The curse of being female and all the blame placed upon the original female and every female ever since (according to Christianity) for all mankind's ills - so in a way this symbolises misogyny although I appreciate that that is quite subtle. I took this image for A4 and not specifically for this but felt it has a strong sense of symbolism so included it here. |
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