Photo Assignment: Happiness

For our photo project, we were given the topic of happiness. The task was to make a convincing argument about our photos and how they represent happiness, and I believe that we (the group) did a good job of doing that. The first step was to think of what would be the ideal use of happiness; thanks to the blizzard that came into town, we were thinking that a winter wonderland would be a true form of happiness that anyone can agree with. We were to take photos of simple things that kids (and college students) would do in the snow; whether that would be building snowman, making snow angles, or having a snowball fight. On the day we began to work on the photos we decided that to go with the snowman idea and build one ourselves. With some effort and luck, we were able to make a lifelike snowman sitting down on a bench in the Quad, just enjoying the sunny day that we had between the two snowstorms. The idea that a snowman was to capture happiness was partly due in the lighting. The white snowman with a white background, and some simple red eyes, smile, buttons, and flower, and the brown bench made the snowman’s features stand out much more, showing the happiness it had. The next thing we did was we took pictures of people with the snowman, as if he was a real person and having a good time. We showed a picture of a girl smiling and giggling with the snowman, a guy and the snowman smiling and just chatting it up, and plenty of other pictures showing happiness. The angle that we shot the photos captures the warm smiles of both the snowman and the person with the snowman, thus giving the idea that everything is happy. My favorite shot of the photo was with the snowman and a girl who volunteered to be in the photo, laughing “with the snowman”. The photo had the focus on the girl and snowman at hold, capturing the face and body of the girl as she laughs with hysteria, placing her hand on the snowman’s knee, showing a warm feeling between the two. The snowman was in the far left of the frame, in the sense of the rule of thirds and therefore making the girl the focus and with her body facing and leaning toward the snowman, made it focus on the happiness in her face. In all, this project was a success, but had things that could have gone better. I liked the group, we did work well, but we didn’t have the best schedules. Finding time to actually meet was hard, and we had to divide up the work into two smaller groups, not to mention that I wasn’t able to make final editing due to work. I don’t want to sound like the odd man out but I really didn’t feel welcome in the group, I felt left out, as if they really bonded well together and I was not really “part” of the group. Maybe it was the fact they were all from California and I was from New Jersey, I don’t know, but I wasn’t welcome, even though I liked the group. The most important thing I learned from this assignment was how to use the tools photography to make an effective message. I can use angles, focus, and so on to make a photo mean something different.

Benetton’s Unusual Propaganda

For this week’s blog, we were to read a chapter from a book about Propaganda and if the imaging was used in a positive way or not. After reading about Benetton’s clothing chain’s advertisement strategy I was confused on what they were thinking. The idea that shocking and somewhat hard-to- look-at images will draw in more costumers to their products didn’t make as much sense to me as it did to them when they were drawing out the plans for this advertising campaign. The idea of using images such as two horses mating, and a man with AIDS on his deathbed would draw in the target group for their product (young adults between the ages of 18-24) seem to be a very odd way to get their attention. Though it is an image that wouldn’t leave the mind anytime soon, and thus remind the young adults of the brand name, the images really didn’t flow with the product. As a clothing company, I would use images such as a young couple holding hands with the photo focused on their jeans or their torso if I were to sell the product, but to me, these images where just a way to get some shock factor. The idea that ads like this will be seen by other people, not just the target group has to be taken, and when children to elderly people see this image, it could easily upset or offend them in some form. Companies have to realize that images are powerful and that they can be taken anyway, and should be aware of the conscientious of their actions. Even if companies think “Any publicity is good publicity” they have to take in the fact that the people and market will determine if the images are good enough to help sales; because of Benetton’s images, they lost shelf space and lost millions of dollars for their campaign. Everything has to be taken in perspective, and when using images you have to know who you are targeting, but you should also relate it to your product and not do some random image for mare shock value. This is propaganda for sure for it is nothing more but a somewhat shock and aw campaign where the people are to be stun in some way by what they see. These campaigns in the marketing world are dangerous for they can go either way and can hurt the company just like it did here for Benetton.