Pregled posta

Marketing

All I know is that I was innocently sitting on the couch this afternoon, having just cleaned my camera lens. I was eyeballing absentmindedly through the viewfinder, and I aimed the camera toward the television, which was on and showing a set of commercials between shows.

The ad shows a tight macro shot of an eyeball that appears to be undergoing some sort of surgical procedure. I had the TV volume muted so I have no aural record of what the commercial ad might have been for, but based only on the little bits of text across the bottom of the screen, there's a ball scheduled for March 22 at the local eye bank.

I experienced a number of responses to the images thrown at me during commercial breaks between shows.

* Ew. I've cleaned up the barf of my friends, my family, my child and my self. I can totally handle the nastiest diaper with nary the flip of my stomach's contents. But the close-up here (ON A TELEVISION AD, no less) reminds me just a teensy tinsy too much of A Clockwork Orange (which, btw, has THEE best soundtrack EVER. Once you listen to it you'll wanna marry a lighthouse keeper too, trust you me. But I digress, let's bring it back around, shall we? Yes, lets.). The movie itself was thematically disturbing. You know what I'm talking about ... yeah, that eyeball scene? Mmmmhmm, that.

I am offended that it TAKES such an image to get the attention of John Q. and Jane K. Public.

I am pissed off at my country's media who would rather not have to work themselves into anything remotely resembling a mental sweat, the media who will obligingly pop right in for the cheap and easy buck... viagra ads, anyone?

I'm troubled by the fact that the eye bank might be having such a depository decline that they're throwing macro images of eyeballs onto my tv in hopes that just one more person will finally pull out a goddamned pen to sign the donor card on the back of their state ID or drivers license. Is it REALLY that hard to do? Have we actually driven these people into nauseatingly graphic bare ads to shock us into paying attention?

It started with those medication commercials a few years ago (are you depressed? are you having hot flashes? Does some part of your anatomy itch? Are you pissing off your spouse with that ridiculous twitch you convulse in while asleep?) and has exploded into macro images of eye surgery to get public attention refocused (!) on the continuing critical need for organ donors.

* Between the bursts of anger, outrage and heebie-jeebies, I was also reminded of the numerous dissections I did when I was younger, the earliest of which was 7th grade, when I dissected my first cow eye. It was a nasty procedure for a teenager (even though I wasn't particular faint of heart nor a shrieker kind'v gal), but I can still remember the sense of breathless awe I felt at putting the pieces -like, the ACTUAL pieces- together and being transfixed at the process of how we _see_. Such a gift.

Just not when I'm not expecting it, mid-afternoon on network television.

this one gave me a whole lot of trouble. who knew food photographers would empty the beer BEFORE they started shooting? craziness.

starting with an EMPTY bottle, it was shot horizontal with the original intent to be a hovering bottle. then i realized we'd probably rather read the label for this assignment, so it got flipped in post for that outward 'reach out and grab me' lean.

two profoto acute packs-2400 and 1200 with 2 softboxes and two grid spots-softbox on top and camera left, grids on either end of the bottle. the cap was added in post since i couldn't get a good looking one after i removed it.

sprayed with adhesive spray and then glycerine/water for the frosty/sweat look.

dropped in curves, popped it off the layer just in case i want to add a background.