Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Old meets new meets old

Many of the photos here at Points of Light are cross-posted on Flickr. I started using Flickr about a year ago as a way to work around the frequently funky photo hosting/posting function on Blogger. Earlier this year, I noticed a growing number of views and comments on my photo stream on Flickr. It’s gotten to the point where my Flickr traffic is drawing about even with my Points of Light traffic.

Anyway, this photo drew some comments concerning the influence of corporate America on our collective psyche. There are a couple of juxtapositions within this photo that caught my attention while looking for photo subjects in St. Charles, Illinois last weekend. (Tor from Maine awarded me two points for using “gibbous” in a sentence two posts previous to this one. I think “juxtaposition” is worth at least five.)

One dichotomy is the casual, (presumably) authentic conversation of the folks in front of Starbucks, which is itself an example of a manufactured aesthetic marketed to the masses. (I’m racking up the points here – Tor, I used “dichotomy!”) The other is the location of a modern mass marketer within a century-old structure that used to be a premier hotel in the region.

Old meets new, or is old the new new?

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.

3 comments:

James said...

I can imagine someone from West Palm Beach doing that while counting a hanging chad.

Tor said...

You just don't hear words like "gibbous" anymore. Juxtapose and dichotomy, while sesquipedalian, lack that certain jenesaycantspell.

Anonymous said...

My daily work is the business of which "hanging chads" are no longer a part; funny you should mention those!!!

I knew someone who had to have a trichotomy put in when she wrecked her bike. Wait a minute, no, that's a tracheotomy. Sorry. I'm talkin' trasheotomy.