Narrative Essay Example
Shown Before Photoshopped
By living in a visual world, companies frequently run ads using photoshopped pictures. The image presented is near perfect in appearance, yet it is not always truthful. Despite the numerous cautions implied by doctors or inscribed on cigarette packets, smoking has been a fashionable trend throughout the years. Some advertisements influence individuals in becoming addicted to the nicotine inside the health hazard wrapped within paper. Other advertisements tend to sway the viewer into pondering the general concern of the problem at hand. Photographer Mike Stubbs’s photo of Terrie Hall focuses on his subject’s physical appearance not altered in photoshop, instead, altered by surgery. By presenting Terrie Hall, a former smoker, in this advertisement, the harsh and shocking truth about smoking is exposed.
This picture introduces Terrie as a 52 year old woman from North Carolina. A quarter size hole in Terrie’s throat causes one’s eyes to focus on the rest of her disfigured appearance. Directly to the viewer’s right of Terrie are large, bolded white letters that spell, “Record your voice for loved ones while you still can.” In Terrie’s lap is a small framed picture of her with her child. Unfocused, is a background of a white wall and another framed picture of the same child on a nearby table.
Unfortunately in a society where one’s image is so important, these businesses and their buyers do not want people to know the underlying truth. Tobacco businesses would not enjoy the presence of Terrie Hall working for their company because of the effects of her cigarette usage over the years. The quarter sized hole in Terrie’s throat is the result of surgery to remove her cancer filled voice box and its surrounding structures. The hole, or stoma, is how Terrie breathes. Smoking also causes other life suppressing damages such as the deterioration of one’s lungs, bladder cancer, and other various chronic diseases that advertisements do not consider
By living in a visual world, companies frequently run ads using photoshopped pictures. The image presented is near perfect in appearance, yet it is not always truthful. Despite the numerous cautions implied by doctors or inscribed on cigarette packets, smoking has been a fashionable trend throughout the years. Some advertisements influence individuals in becoming addicted to the nicotine inside the health hazard wrapped within paper. Other advertisements tend to sway the viewer into pondering the general concern of the problem at hand. Photographer Mike Stubbs’s photo of Terrie Hall focuses on his subject’s physical appearance not altered in photoshop, instead, altered by surgery. By presenting Terrie Hall, a former smoker, in this advertisement, the harsh and shocking truth about smoking is exposed.
This picture introduces Terrie as a 52 year old woman from North Carolina. A quarter size hole in Terrie’s throat causes one’s eyes to focus on the rest of her disfigured appearance. Directly to the viewer’s right of Terrie are large, bolded white letters that spell, “Record your voice for loved ones while you still can.” In Terrie’s lap is a small framed picture of her with her child. Unfocused, is a background of a white wall and another framed picture of the same child on a nearby table.
Unfortunately in a society where one’s image is so important, these businesses and their buyers do not want people to know the underlying truth. Tobacco businesses would not enjoy the presence of Terrie Hall working for their company because of the effects of her cigarette usage over the years. The quarter sized hole in Terrie’s throat is the result of surgery to remove her cancer filled voice box and its surrounding structures. The hole, or stoma, is how Terrie breathes. Smoking also causes other life suppressing damages such as the deterioration of one’s lungs, bladder cancer, and other various chronic diseases that advertisements do not consider