The Most Unplugged Gabby Douglas Photo: Breakfast of Champions BEFORE Kelloggs Came Calling
I can only wonder what the quick coalescing Team Douglas now thinks of the quirky portrait, sporting that "complicated" expression, relative to "building out the brand."
Continue Reading
No Shame: Kozyrev Photographs Syrians at Russian Weapons Bazaar
Forget the Russian women in the short skirts helping peddle all that hardware. What Yuri has to show us are photos of the head of the Syrian delegation looking like a first cousin of Russia's weapons export staff.
Continue Reading
American Workers Broken and Angry… The Perfect Advertising Opportunity!
So, the hot trend in corporate advertising is to repurpose the "stress" and "sense of rebellion" American workers are feeling today ... for whatever reason??
Continue Reading
A Few Words About Joe Klamar's Viral (and "Obviously Terrible") Olympic Portraits
Whether the picture subverts the background, the composition, the lighting or the athlete's expression, what at least a handful of Klamar's photos "accomplish" is to slight the plasticized image of the Olympic athlete perpetuated throughout the quadrennial media and advertising orgy.
Continue Reading
Eyes on the Google Glasses
Of course, today we hardly notice, but in the early days of cell phones, people on the street looked like they were psychotic.
Continue Reading
Further Wall Street Bloodletting: Photographers Give JPMorgan Chase
Part of the impunity of Wall Street firms has to do with how stealth they are ... and how hard it is to capture the meltdown in pictures.
Continue Reading
Pink Slime — Plus, the Return of Rick Perry!
When the public found out last week that most of the country’s beef has ammonia-infused pink slime in it, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and his buddy Rick from Texas headed over to the pink slime factory in Nebraska for some damage-controlling photographs.
Continue Reading
The Barely Noticeable Assembly Line Worker in the Background of the All-Consuming Political Campaign
This campaign photo by AP's Evan Vucci does something respectful and noteworthy. Exploited as props, it recognizes the presence and mind-numbing grind of the American assembly worker.
Continue Reading
Fly United
The supposedly outrageous Business Week cover of two planes humping. ... actually, been there, done that?
Continue Reading
Next Up: Bowl Season
The brand ID can be seen to implicate the overwhelming role of sponsorship and advertising money in college sports. Given that's the game, the image of kids in the pen has a much wider significance.
Continue Reading
Some Thoughts on the MVRDV "9/11 Exploding World Trade Center" Building
I'm a lot less concerned about MVRDV's design than I am about the hysteria it's generating. If there's really something to worry about here, it's the destruction of the opportunity for a more nuanced discussion given all the cultural, political, perceptual and aesthetic alarms going off.
Continue Reading
Iraq Pullout: America Still Golden
Just as George Bush early on linked patriotism to going shopping, it seems that the residual accomplishment of the Iraq War was the preservation of America's popular culture and consumer way of life.
Continue Reading
Black Friday
In any other year, this photo — fronting the NYT on Thanksgiving — would be perfectly straight-forward: it’s those people, once again, camping out at a chain store waiting to get unimaginable deals on stuff they don’t need and likely can’t afford, the future of our economy resting, between today...
Continue Reading
Occupy is not a Frickin' Maybelline Ad
You know what's messed up? It's when a cosmetics company turns a populist and embattled movement for economic justice into giggly, jiggly mind-numbing hamburger for the sake of peddling lip balm.
Continue Reading
Romney Drinking From the Cup
Romney, of course, did pay lip service last night to the pain and frustration people are feeling right now. But what the photo speaks to how much always is mugging for Wall Street culture.
Continue Reading