Laura Pannack for SIRE - Marked for Life: What you say during divorce lasts forever
SIRE is a group of selected advertisers and marketers who dedicate their time to creating work raising awareness of social issues. The campaign that I chose to analyse was that which focuses on the effects divorce can have on children, more specifically the effects that the words of parents have throughout a stressful time of divorce. The images in the campaign consist of children with tattoos of hostile words which have come from their parents. The ads were in Dutch but I was able to find translated images.
1. The first image shows a little girl who appears to be glaring at what we initially can only guess however once the message of the campaign is known we assume she is watching her parents argue, she is at a table with mild and cookies, I feel this setting helps to reinforce her innocence making it very obvious how young and vulnerable she is as a child. We first see that she has a tattoo on her arm and once we focus on this tattoo we are given the message of the image “Your mother ruined us all” this helps us to image what it is she can see, maybe her father is yelling at her. I feel there is a lot of white in the image as white is an honest, innocent, colour the colour used to signify surrendering. The main focal point in this image is the little girl, the expression on her face makes the image, she does not look happy and cheerful but instead hurt, upset and a little disappointed. I would class this image as a piece of portraiture as the story is being told through the model rather than through props and a background. Overall I can describe this artwork as very calm showing the emotions of hurt from the child rather than anger.
2.The second image has more colour in the background but less accompanying props, there is still however a significant amount of white in the image. Again we see our main focal point being a child with a similar staring look, this time the tattoo of harsh words from her parents is on her arm making it predominant and very easy to see and
read. This helps keep focus on the child and what emotions she portrays.
3.The third image is the simplest, white is the only colour given off in the image, there are no real backgrounds or props and the little boy is topless, I feel this was done as a way of placing tattoos in other places. Here the tattoo is on the little boy’s collar bone and like previous children he is glancing away at something looking very sad. “I wish we never had children” here the words are ones which would have been said between parents but could have also been said directly to the child.
4. The forth image is the darkest so far and in this image we can make the educated guess that the little boy is not focusing on his parents but on the television and the game he is playing. Similarity to the previous image he is topless to allow a place to have his tattoo which this time reads “If you go to your father you can stay here” the boy seems to be very preoccupied and almost sucked into his game. The use of shadows add a negative effect to the image and makes me feel almost like this child is less innocent than the others but instead has a shady personality which was a result of his parents stressful divorce.
5. Image five is the first image to feature more than one child I feel this was firstly done as the statement used in the image is longer than the others “If you take the house I’ll take the boys” here we see two boys outside in a very dark background area holding a fall, a very tatty ball. They however do not look like happy and cheerful children who have been playing but more upset and troubled.
My initial reaction is to feel sorry for the children, however it makes me feel bad as the stresses of divorce is something that I have no real control over, I have no way of giving aid to these children and so I feel the images are to raise awareness so that people do realise the effects that divorce can have and take it into account so that if they ever
get to that place they can take specific precautions that will not affect their children. The message “What you say during divorce lasts forever” is stated in each image from the Marked for life campaign and I feel this helps to give the focusing message adding emphasis.
I especially liked the use of tattoos as everyone associates tattoos to do with being permanent makings on your body, things that cannot be taken back and that is the main message of this campaign, once you say things to and in front
of your children during ressful times it stays with them forever. The tattoos also grab the viewer’s attention as you do not expect children to be tattooed and you want to find out what it is that they have tattooed onto their bodies.Many of the images focus on having light areas, with very dull if not any colouring the images are all very soft and have very subtle contrasts, I feel this is an effect that many campaign images may use.
The composition in each image varies however it is always focused on complimenting the central point of interest which is the children. Empathy is what I feel the photography wants us to feel. We are made to empathise with these children and their situations and then think about other children who may be going through similar divorce situations and so we want a change.
Each image and its simplicity allow the viewer to create a story that they feel fits with the child are their position. I personally have no connection with the subject matter but I expect the areas where the posters were used possibly had a high divorce rate at the time and so it would have been very relevant and had a connection to the viewers.
I love these set of images and as campaign images it gives me more ideas about the sort of topics I could want to
photograph and experiment with. So far the thoughts have been focused around children and campaigns that aim to help improve the lives of ildren. I decided whether a work has value by the quality of a message and the quality of
how this message is portrayed though an image, I feel this message is stated very obviously and reinstated with its use of text.
My idea of responding to this image was one which would focus on children as they have done but using my own concept. I feel these images work well due to their focus on children.
1. The first image shows a little girl who appears to be glaring at what we initially can only guess however once the message of the campaign is known we assume she is watching her parents argue, she is at a table with mild and cookies, I feel this setting helps to reinforce her innocence making it very obvious how young and vulnerable she is as a child. We first see that she has a tattoo on her arm and once we focus on this tattoo we are given the message of the image “Your mother ruined us all” this helps us to image what it is she can see, maybe her father is yelling at her. I feel there is a lot of white in the image as white is an honest, innocent, colour the colour used to signify surrendering. The main focal point in this image is the little girl, the expression on her face makes the image, she does not look happy and cheerful but instead hurt, upset and a little disappointed. I would class this image as a piece of portraiture as the story is being told through the model rather than through props and a background. Overall I can describe this artwork as very calm showing the emotions of hurt from the child rather than anger.
2.The second image has more colour in the background but less accompanying props, there is still however a significant amount of white in the image. Again we see our main focal point being a child with a similar staring look, this time the tattoo of harsh words from her parents is on her arm making it predominant and very easy to see and
read. This helps keep focus on the child and what emotions she portrays.
3.The third image is the simplest, white is the only colour given off in the image, there are no real backgrounds or props and the little boy is topless, I feel this was done as a way of placing tattoos in other places. Here the tattoo is on the little boy’s collar bone and like previous children he is glancing away at something looking very sad. “I wish we never had children” here the words are ones which would have been said between parents but could have also been said directly to the child.
4. The forth image is the darkest so far and in this image we can make the educated guess that the little boy is not focusing on his parents but on the television and the game he is playing. Similarity to the previous image he is topless to allow a place to have his tattoo which this time reads “If you go to your father you can stay here” the boy seems to be very preoccupied and almost sucked into his game. The use of shadows add a negative effect to the image and makes me feel almost like this child is less innocent than the others but instead has a shady personality which was a result of his parents stressful divorce.
5. Image five is the first image to feature more than one child I feel this was firstly done as the statement used in the image is longer than the others “If you take the house I’ll take the boys” here we see two boys outside in a very dark background area holding a fall, a very tatty ball. They however do not look like happy and cheerful children who have been playing but more upset and troubled.
My initial reaction is to feel sorry for the children, however it makes me feel bad as the stresses of divorce is something that I have no real control over, I have no way of giving aid to these children and so I feel the images are to raise awareness so that people do realise the effects that divorce can have and take it into account so that if they ever
get to that place they can take specific precautions that will not affect their children. The message “What you say during divorce lasts forever” is stated in each image from the Marked for life campaign and I feel this helps to give the focusing message adding emphasis.
I especially liked the use of tattoos as everyone associates tattoos to do with being permanent makings on your body, things that cannot be taken back and that is the main message of this campaign, once you say things to and in front
of your children during ressful times it stays with them forever. The tattoos also grab the viewer’s attention as you do not expect children to be tattooed and you want to find out what it is that they have tattooed onto their bodies.Many of the images focus on having light areas, with very dull if not any colouring the images are all very soft and have very subtle contrasts, I feel this is an effect that many campaign images may use.
The composition in each image varies however it is always focused on complimenting the central point of interest which is the children. Empathy is what I feel the photography wants us to feel. We are made to empathise with these children and their situations and then think about other children who may be going through similar divorce situations and so we want a change.
Each image and its simplicity allow the viewer to create a story that they feel fits with the child are their position. I personally have no connection with the subject matter but I expect the areas where the posters were used possibly had a high divorce rate at the time and so it would have been very relevant and had a connection to the viewers.
I love these set of images and as campaign images it gives me more ideas about the sort of topics I could want to
photograph and experiment with. So far the thoughts have been focused around children and campaigns that aim to help improve the lives of ildren. I decided whether a work has value by the quality of a message and the quality of
how this message is portrayed though an image, I feel this message is stated very obviously and reinstated with its use of text.
My idea of responding to this image was one which would focus on children as they have done but using my own concept. I feel these images work well due to their focus on children.