Posts Tagged ‘apples’
Pity the poor photographers…
In this photo illustration a Lego shark chomps down on a Lego figure holding a Greek flag as other figures holding an Italian (L), Portuguese (C) and Spanish flag look on over a sea of Euro coins on September 27, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. Europe is continuing to wrestle with the ominous prospect of a Greek debt default that many fear could spread panic and push the already fragile economies of Italy, Portugal and Spain into a Eurozone crisis with global repercussions. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The Greeks aren’t the only ones sick of the euro crisis. Photographers are reaching the end of their tether too, struggling to shoot images of euro coins in various states of distress to illustrate the story. Though some of the photos are absurd, they still get published — because news outlets are equally desperate…
Read the whole sad story in “Photographer Fatigue: The Absurd Quest for Euro Crisis Images” in Spiegel Online.
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As we reach for our hankies, we might recall that it was during this month in 1930 that over 6,000 unemployed New Yorkers took to street corners selling apples at five cents apiece. As Herbert Hoover unhelpfully observed, “Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.”
The Ghosts of Advertisements Past…
This old advertisement for Harold Lloyd’s 1922 classic silent comedy, GRANDMA’S BOY, was rediscovered in February 2012 when the building next to it, built in 1923, was torn down. Sadly, this building was also scheduled to be demolished, and indeed it was just a couple of weeks later, taking the advert with it. Source: C. Browne, http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolbrowne/6937438297/. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence.
“Ghost Signs” are advertisements painted on the sides of buildings (before the advent of billboards), then obscured by subsequent construction/redecoration (or simply left to weather nearly away), only lately to be uncovered/rediscovered. Once a vital part both of America’s young consumer economy and of its visual landscape, they are beginning again to attract attention, as at The Basement Geographer (via which, the image above), and in the Ghost Signs and Faded Signage pools on Flickr and in the Wikimedia Commons. (C.f. also, the UK website Ghost Signs.)
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As we dream in technicolor, we might send fertile birthday wishes to Jonathan Chapman; he was born on this date in 1774. A pioneering nurseryman, he introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois… earning him the nickname by which he is much better known: Johnny Appleseed.
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