Sad Signs Say So Much

Posted on September 18th, 2009 in MicroStock, Microstock markets, image management

sadsigns

It’s sad when signs are upside down. It makes you wonder who put the sign up and why they didn’t notice it was upside down. Natural instincts wouldbe to review the sign before walking away. One last look. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. And you get the above. A skewed result that communicates not quite what was intended.

Signage is a versatile image subject because it at once brings the audience into a relationship with the message the sign is trying to communicate. Up, down, over, a sign has immediate authority people are trained to respond to. Photographs that capture images of signs and convey what they state can be amusing and whimsical in the right context. It is up to the photographer to catch and compsoe that context for the static photographic onlooker.

Image manipulation is one way to make wrong way down things go right side up. But also, the frozen capture of the image where all was not well can be food for thought. The context of the shot should be wider, to emphasize the disorientation. But the gas station sign and the telephone wires did not contribute to what I wanted the audience to notice.

Inversion in images can be a good way to bottom out a shape when you are so used to composition you don’t notice you favor a bell shaped curve, S-curve, square, rectangle wider at the base, ovoid circle, and so on. This does happen. Favoritism toward a right slanted perspective or focus on areas in the bottom left field can be reversed using inversion or image flipping. Perhaps if you reverse some images or find a way to make some images you thought were “flabby” and interesting, new results could emerge.

Rotating and skewing can deliver some dramatic and striking image results. If you fele the image is in perfect resolution, try flattening the horizontal axis. the punched up impact might be a better image to vend. Low cost legal images can be released in the format of the photographer’s choice. The freedom to experiment in the editing stage is limitless.

In this context, the photographer must guide the viewer to what is the subject. By croppingÂ image to positioning the sign off center,Â I have emphasized the off-center nature of the sign’s extmessage. A squarely positioned shot (with no context) misdirects the viewer even though the point is right in front of them. Otherwise, the eyes automatically follow the uniform linearity of the sign against the image borders before they track the upside down text