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A Snapshot of Metropolitan Advertising
What I did was I spent several hours going through the Metrorail system in the Washington DC area and took pictures of the advertisements that line the insides of the trains, the station mezzanines, and the subway platforms. Advertising says a lot about a society at a given point in time. It tells us what is considered "hip", it tells us what people want us to buy, and it tells us what people are buying, to an extent. So let's take a moment and look at these signs of the times, the advertisements found in a metropolitan area transit system. I've divided the advertisements up into several broad categories, and so let's let the ads tell us all we need to know about American culture in the city... Metro In-House
Commuting
Department of Defense-oriented
Events
Employment
Educational Opportunities
Products
Services
Shopping
Public Service Announcements
Note: This final ad with the frogs is my favorite among all the ads. |
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The Snapshot of Metropolitan Advertising photo set was originally not intended to happen at all. It's the product of bad weather, and quick thinking on my feet. What happened was that I was on a tight schedule for the entire Photo Essay Blitz week to begin with, on average having three major targets per day, most of them outside. So the weather cooperating and being sunny was a major factor in the success of the trip. This was the only occasion where the weather did not cooperate to the point where a photo shoot had to be cancelled outright. I originally wasn't planning on doing a snapshot of advertising - I was planning on showing you Old Town Alexandria. But you know how it is... when life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.
