Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Kordale, Kaleb, and Nikon


The recent advertising campaign, launched by Nikon, “I Am Generation Image,”  has attracted a huge amount of media buzz, specifically because two of their featured subjects are a black gay male couple and their kids.

librarisingnsf had a diary about them last week. The Instagram photo they uploaded doing their girl’s hair in the morning, set off a firestorm – some supportive, and some very hateful, but it got them noticed by Nikon.

Kordale & Kaleb: Dads

“Last year, we were surprised when a picture of us doing our daughters’ hair went viral. To us, that’s just part of our morning routine. With our images, we want to share our family’s life – and maybe reveal how much our family is like yours.”

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In their press release Nikon talks about the advertising impetus behind the campaign, but not the controversy.

“I AM Generation Image” reminds us that we are all part of this generation, and Nikon will enable our stories to ring loud, true and authentic. The campaign will help to define this generation as the first to overwhelmingly express themselves through images en masse and on a global scale. The successful “I AM” international campaign has acted as a worldwide catalyst for millions of fans to self-identify with the Nikon brand. The new campaign builds upon the “I AM” architecture to make imaging a personal experience for North America.

It made me think about who buys Nikons? Though I love photography as a journalistic art form, and have for years, I would never be able to afford a fancy Nikon. Nor would I need one. But those people dedicated to the field as a craft and a calling do buy Nikons.  They are probably one of the least likely groups to embrace bigotry. I started thinking-could I even name a famous right-wing photographer? I couldn’t.

The professional photographers I knew, met or admired growing up were Gordon Parks, Cartier Bresson, Ansel Adams, Pierre Verger, and Dorothea Lange. My dad collected some of the work of photographers who haunted the jazz scene, capturing the artistry of so many of our favorite musicians.

Is there something about viewing the world through a lens that gives the photographer a different way of seeing? Photojournalism for me, seems to be a form of visual anthropology– ethnography via images.

How many of us have had our lives changed, or the way we think changed by a photo?

I’d like to thank the powers that be at Nikon, for doing this. Here’s hoping that more companies will use images that move the hearts and emotions of the viewers to empathize and identify.

I thought about the right wing pout-rage against Coca-Cola for their multicultural American the Beautiful Super Bowl ad last year, and went back to look at it again. Guess it doesn’t match their vision of America, but it is one I embrace.

I don’t usually muse like this here. Bear with me.

We all know the power of advertising and we are often highly critical of ads and the corporations behind them.

Some times they get it right.  

We should let them know when they do.

Cross-posted from Black Kos

 


11 comments

  1. Portlaw

    change, perhaps more immediately than words. Lots to think about.

    Agree about feedback on ads that get things right or any thing or anyone that gets things right. My mother always said the two most important words were “Thank you.”

     

  2. bfitzinAR

    can even imagine.  It shapes the way we think about ourselves.  More, if we let it, it determines the way we think about ourselves.  And we have to be paying attention and consciously accepting or rejecting what advertising is telling us to think/feel about ourselves to have any input at all – otherwise advertising sneaks into our subconscious minds and basically takes over.  A generation or more of advertising is why Fox News is popular – and believed.

    So if we can get control of the power of advertising, and unfortunately only if we can get control of the power of advertising, we can truly reshape America because we will be able to reshape Americans.  

  3. Diana in NoVa

    Yes, advertising definitely does shape the way we think about ourselves. I once told a friend how my youth was poisoned because I couldn’t accept the way I looked. The “standard” of female beauty in this country, at least when I was young, was that women were supposed to be 5’10”, weigh 110 pounds, and have blue eyes and straight blonde hair. I spent most of my youth and middle age feeling inferior because I didn’t have that kind of looks.

    My friend gazed at me in surprise. She had been brought up in England, spent five years in Australia, and came to this country only in middle age. She said she never felt like that. She never considered herself to be falling short of some advertising-imposed ideal. I was rocked back on my feet by her revelation.

    So, yes, this post arouses all sorts of interesting reflections and speculations, such as, “What if women controlled advertising”? What if women were the highly sought-after professional photographers?”

    All sorts of perceptions might change if women had a larger voice in the public forum. Gad, I feel a short story coming on.

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