This week, Natan Dvir’s photographs from Fototazo caught by
eye for their ability to force the viewer to look twice. On first glance, I
simply saw another advertisement with saturated colors and idealized figures.
Only when the viewer looks closer can they see the small people inhabiting the
space surrounding these large-scale advertisements. One of my professors once
said that we see more images in a day than a person from the Renaissance would
have seen in their whole lives. How does this affect us? Is it possible to
appreciate any image to the same degree when we are constantly bombarded with imagery?
Dvir’s photographs show billboards towering over people, leaving the “real”
people seemingly insignificant and distant. They continue their everyday lives
completely oblivious to the monumental commercials towering over them. Frequently
the billboards show idealized depictions of the human form dwarfing normal people
walking along the street. But these billboards are normal. No one thinks
anything of it. The streetwalkers do not stop to question the proliferation of commercial
imagery. Dvir’s photographs make the viewer consider how we interact with large-scale
advertisements and what this suggests about modern life.
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