Advertisements

(p.s sorry about the squeiff images :S)

An initial idea that I am having for the photography project is to look at advertisements as fashion photographs and maybe having our shoot in a similar style to fashion adverts. I picked up a brilliant book to reference this and influence this idea from the library the other day, 'Smoke signals, 100 years of tobacco advertising'. (it really links with what I have already been looking at for my ideas so far).

The nostalgia in the adverts is charming although considering the concept of the advertisements, selling cigarettes, one wouldn't think that this could be possible. For me personally it isn't the subject matter at all but the format of the advertisements that's attracting my attention. With this in mind, and when looking at the some of the advertisements, I can realise a huge shift in what some of the adverts are saying for the product, some heavily glamorise the product; showing images with aristocratic connotations and very glamorous women which are used to sell the idea, the product and the lifestyle, some are literally just an image of the product. The advertisements have a lot of text on the front of them, seemingly showing us that the image and the product alone, may not sell the product. The book is easy to navigate through as the years are categorised. The year that I'm preferring the most is the 1960's, 'The New Way' as it is referred to in the book. The main front image being of a western masculine man, smoking a cigarette, with his cowboy hat and battered leather waistcoat, his label is 'The Malboro Cowboy'. I might think about the idea of consumer consumption and advertising for this project???

I can see that the matchbox colour and connotations has led me on this tangent. Not too sure what the rest of the group will think, but we are meeting tomorrow to talk about our ideas, so we will see.