Moving pictures... and getting them wrong.

[vakkotaur]

No, not movies. Stills, with an impact.

Some time ago now I had a few World Book yearly supplements. These were the yearly updates meant to aid in keeping a set of encyclopedias up to date. These supplements were neat snapshots of each year. The ones I had were from the 1950s and 1960s. Amongst the news of who died and who was now leading which country and such there were things like noted cartoons and award winning newspaper photos.

Though the supplements are now long gone, I do recall two photos in particular. I'm not sure who took them or if one was even considered for any award. But they were both memorable and, to me, rather powerful.

One was a very hopeful photo. It was in a warehouse or on a loading dock. There were many pallets stacked high with boxes. The boxes were marked both HANDLE WITH CARE (or something like it) and RUSH. What was this stuff that warranted a picture and needed light but fast handling? Polio vaccine.

The other was a rather depressing photo. It showed a street scene in some city. There were cars parked and maybe some traffic on a cross street. The street the picture was really of was still. There was a car stopped, I think, in one lane. In front of that was a small body, hidden by a white sheet. If that wasn't enough, the doctor carrying his black bag and walking away, head down, said the rest.

Both images were black & white. Color would not have helped them, I think. The lack of color gave the first picture a sense of determined efficiency, and the second, well the second didn't need anything more than it had. Those photos got it right, it seems. They said what they wanted to say and hardly needed a caption.

There is another picture, a more recent one, which would be more effective if someone had not tried to make it more effective. Maybe that didn't make sense. On a bulletin board at work there are the various safety posters one would expect to find in industry. There are also safety posters about things outside work. The one I am about describe is one of these.

In this picture, the very top shows the very edge of a road. A bit lower is an overturned car, near the center is a covered body. Next to the covered body, a dog is sitting as if waiting for that person to wake up and get up. At the very bottom of the picture is a 12-pack. This started out as a potent image. The caption mentions the lack of seatbelt use, the loyal dog, and that the 12-pack might have been a contributing factor.

But what screws it up is the editing to try to make it more effective and simply makes it feel manipulative. For while the picture was taken in color, only the covered body, the dog, and the 12-pack are in color. The rest, even the car, is in black and white. Had it been all color or all black and white, it would be more effective. That color is used selectively only makes it feel manipulated - which it is. These posters are, of course, a form of propaganda and are manipulative by definition, yet that just goes too far. It's saying "Look, stupid, here are the important parts." As if anyone looking at it couldn't figure it out themselves.

Comments

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing became popular only in the past few years with the ability to easily manipulate images on a computer. It's very much a case of "we can do it, so we will". As you point out, not all editing is a Good Idea.