Synopsis of Practises of Looking/ ADS
After reading the first chapter in the text I have become more observent of the media and visuls around me. I can now understand how some photo journalist caputure the essence of what they want to be portrayed. For instance, the photograph of Robert Frank- Trolley New Orleans, the one we saw in class is a picture of an actual moment in time. These people were not told to pose or the backgrund was not prearranged, ths photo happened at a split second and all emotions and realities were captured within it. I also learned about not only finding the center of an image because of obvious reasons, but how the background emphasizes the center of an image as well.
Alot of Ads are trying to send out a message or purpose, while photographs capture a message by accident. For instance, I was riding the Metro North train to NYC about a week ago, and I saw this poster ad on the train that I thought was absolutely remarkable. It was an image of a man sitting on a couch and walking his dog on the treadmill. It was a New Yorks Sports Club gym ad-something about starting your New Years resolution. So I have been trying to find this ad everywhere and I finally did on the NYSC web site of course. So now since I have become more observent, I am breaking down and analyzing this ad piece by piece.
I look at this ad in depth and I see that the photographer deliberatley choose a middle aged man; not obese, but definatley not thin- just basically what the average American, stereotypical man over 35 years old would look like. He is overweight, statring to have a receding hairline, wears glasses- not old, but definatly not a young adult. Also he is gazing at the television set instead of walking the treadmill which is 2feet away from him. He has a beer or soda bottle in his hand and a bowl of chips on the floor-half eaten of course, to show that he was eating, drinking and watching TV like a couch potato instead of using his treadmill.
Then of course the most humourous part of the ad is the dog walking the treadmill. This middle aged American man is so lazy that he can not walk the trreadmill at his own house, but he can not even take the dog outside for a walk. This shows how lazy people are that their dogs are getting more use our of a personal treadmill then the actual owner. When I saw this Ad i thought it was so clever, but now I can see and understand how everyting is set up for a purpose.
The man in the sofa chair is also wearing sneakers and is sitting on a towel- like he was about to start working out but he got to distracted by the television. This ad is absolutley perfect for a gym or health club and NYSC got it perfectly. I remember the phrase under the ad was something like What is your New Years Resolution- and then it gave discount prices to those who signed up for the gym starting the New Year. Losing weight is probably one of the most common New Years goals and this ad depicts everything that middle America stands for. Also it is trying to show that you need to go to an actual gym and see others work out to gain motivation because obviously the personal home treadmill is put to little use.
