Tonight I was reading an article on Spiegel, (a German news agency) when I noticed a link titled, Photo Gallery: Images of a Crisis? With the following paragraph:
It's not easy to photograph a news event that takes place primarily on the balance sheets of banks. But photographers have to try. What they come up with is often quite creative. Pretty much every stock market story is illustrated with some trader pulling out his hair. This time around, given the global nature of the story, things got a bit more interesting...
As an artist and photographer, my curiosity is of course peeked. So how could I not click over to see how interesting these images really are? I am well aware that an image by itself can or will relay a completely different message than it will when placed in the context of a written story. But I was curious to see if these images were strong enough to tell the story without the written word. I clicked through the images one by one, wrinkling my nose at the ones I judged as failures and giving my patented nod of approval for those I felt that did. When I reach number 19 of the set, I was stopped dead in my tracks. I have posted the image above and ask you, does this image convey financial crisis? It apparently does in Iceland.
For me, seeing a bike, whether standing up or laying on its side has always invoked just the opposite message. For me a bike speaks of freedom. Financial and every other way possible. What does the above image say to you?
3 comments:
I think the image was targeting the tipped over bike and not the bike itself.
The 'tipped over' bike symbolizes Iceland's economy (per the website). This implies that a standing bike is probably the symbol of a sound economy free of trouble.
The bike does portray freedom and independence, especially to those riders that continue to ride with falling gas prices and a rising dollar.
Here's my take, and no I haven't read the website but I did catch the comment above mine, which makes sense.
I'm picturing an action scene here. The guy has just heard the news: IceBank (or whatever it's called) has failed, his money is in jeopardy, and he's ridden straight from home to the bank to find out exactly what has happened. Upon arriving, in his hasty frustration, he discards his bike carelessly on the front steps and marches to the front door to take care of business!
The previous comments make ton of sense, but for me I think they were trying to portray that the economic crisis is causing some people to ditch the luxury cars and SUVs for something cheaper and more practical without caring for it but tossing it aside to get business back where they want it.
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