There are areas in the city where you find gigantic depictions of beautiful women on advertising billboards, often half naked, contrasting against the hard rectangular buildings and the rest of the environment. In a way, they are humanizing the environment, in another way they can be alienating, because their message of perfect glamour is so insistent; or sometimes they even look like they don't belong where they are. I guess it may all depend on one's mood.
This one is near the Roosevelt Island tram and the 59th Street Bridge, so oncoming cars and people standing on the tram and the platforms over the street will see her. The branches have softened and integrated her somewhat. Here are two more examples near Houston Street. One is more daring than most since the model is close to exposing her entire breasts (not done in the U.S. in public advertising). The other shows a model's face, duplicated and inverted - integrating it into the architecture it adorns and acts as an ad for.
15 comments:
i love those ads along houston & soho area. i know they can be too crowded sometimes, but it's part of the area, i guess.
btw.. love this blog. makes me miss new york even more. i used to live there for 7 years until i decided to move back to my homeland in jakarta, indonesia a year ago.
*cheers*
Ads are now becoming a way of living for most part of the country, and it's really an individual's choice how to accept it. For me I take it as is, just an ad, a suggestion, but not to be taken seriously :)
Adults can look at ads dispassionately (most of the time) but kids are another story. I wonder what this does to a little girl's self esteem when she doesn't look anything like this?
(The photos are great, BTW! LOL!)
Nice post. We can't get away from advertising but then it feeds the advertsing/marketing economy upon which we are all so dependent. Kind of filters into the environment without people being (consiously) aware. I did some big ad shots a couple of months ago.
i love billboards especially done tastefully. Am liking the one with model's face, its unique :)
At first glance I didn't notice the billboard it's so much a part of the building and the trees acted like camoflauge. Really cool picture. 59th Street Bridge...isn't that a Simon & Garfunkel song?
I think bill boards like this can animate certain areas. I remember I while back in London they had to take down a rather revealing road side poster because it was causing to many accidents.Lol, nothing serious I may add.
Thousand dollar an hour model, professional makeup, studio lights, high tech photo editing, a gigantic printer and an expense account - I am always interested in seeing the various end results of pressing the button on a camera.
I cannot help but wonder whose skin texture and whose skin tone was used on her cheeks. Those eyes are a killer and I like the composition! Erase the text and we could call it a mural.
Brian and Lucy - I enjoy your choices of what to show in New York. Great photographs - Thank you.
This is just a billboard-glamorized, yes! To me , this is another form of grafitti. I don't believe in covering sides of buildings with advertisements.
If our buildings had billboards like this, I would not mind, but unfortunately, we only have cellphone companies and Lotto ads "spoiling/advertising" on our buildings - I think this will soon change, because in Bloemfontein, its a new form of advertisment.
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement.
I think also, that this kind of advertising makes a different experience of the city for a woman than for a man, that is one of the issues...as you can see there are many others going on too...
Lucy
Advertising is everywhere, walls, billboards, I kind of like it. It adds something else to our (sometimes) too grey environment. Nice shot too :)
Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site! Keep up the good work. Thanks.
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Nice colors. Keep up the good work. thnx!
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Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it.
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