$1,400 waste can
$20,000 plane rides
$2,000,000 birthday parties
$18,400,000,000 in bonuses
$50,000,000,000 scheme
$700,000,000,000 bailoutIn completing this blog post, I ran into several difficulties. Finding images to illustrate the grand expenditures of Wall Street was possible, but I spent a great deal of time deciding which images best represented the argument I was trying to get across to the reader. As the creator of the blog post, I had a clear idea behind the meaning of each image. But would my readers take away the same meanings? Would they even know the story behind each image? I think the limited text was helpful in bridging this gap...no matter how obscure the images may seem to a reader of this blog, I think the numbers make sense as hard facts and current news. In order to further link the numbers and images, I decided to use a black and white color scheme. The black and white also makes the content look more like criminal evidence...
Images from:
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/02/gm-ford-will-sell-corpora_n_147786.html
2. http://www.overstock.com/Janitorial-Cleaning/Reflections-Stainless-Steel-Waste-Basket/2753726/product.html
3. http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/28/news/companies/tyco_party/
4. http://www.itsconsulting.com/ae/corp/images/Autriche-Cd-Amex.jpg
5. http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795543
6.http://www.daylife.com/photo/0eBc2Bv6XUf1W
"The black and white also makes the content look more like criminal evidence"
ReplyDeleteHow interesting. Not exactly what I took out of it upon first viewing. I thought that it was supposed to represent wasteful spending as an "antiquity," now that we live in less frivolous and more difficult times. I guess that illustrates that, without an emphasis on text, you let the images take upon their own meaning.
I also like that, as the number below each image grows exponentially, the images themselves seem to widen. Another cool choice was the images for the financial schemes, which look like a black hole, sucking our investments down the drain. Here, the text really does, I think, enhance the meaning of the images.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your visual argument. I think that you were totally right though about accompanying the images with the small text you had. Your images are very strong, but the text helps pull the argument together. The numbers help show the huge impact of the bailout and actually seeing them is quite surprising.I appreciate the black and white photos. As Rob commented on the "criminal" side of the photos, I thought it just made the pictures to be taken more seriously. Overall, I think you did a great job!
Dayna
I totally agree with your choice of color. I can definitely sympathize with your struggle to find the right pictures. It's easy to think of the pictures you *want* to use but finding them is a very different story. As a big "Law and Order" fan I instantly got the feeling of criminality and photographic evidence from your pictures. Did you remove the colors from the pictures if they originally had them?
ReplyDeleteI do think that most of your pictures could go without text as long as you kept the pictures together. The pictures have a clear sense of escalation, or a sort of economic climax by the end of the series.