Sinister front page photos on news sites just after midnight on new years

casual hex

(109 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed Jan-04-06 02:42 AM
Original message

Sinister front page photos on news sites just after midnight on new years

On new years eve, just a short while after midnight, I was surfing around some of the news sites. At CNN.com, something about the photo they used as their main front page photo seemed odd to me. I have worked a lot with photo's, photo editing and manipulation in the past, so I tend to recognize it in other photos.

I took a screen grab of the front page, and resized the photo part in photoshop so I could get a better look. I put the images, along with others I took that night from other news web sites, here:
http://wolfflow.741.com/

The first thing that struck me was how staged the photos looked, especially the CNN and MSNBC ones. But it was more than just the staging or manipulation of photos that struck me. The photos seemed to be conveying a message of some sort. To who, I don't know. What the message is, I am unsure. But the photos had a sinister air about them.

There are so many oddities and weirdnesses in these photos (at least in my opinion) that I couldn't possibly go into all of them, but just let me mention a few.

In the first CNN photo, when you look at the blown-up version, rather than a new years eve, the people seem to be rapturing at something in the sky. And at the apex of the triangle formed by the "Times Square" guy's right arm and the black sleeve of a crowd member, toward the center of the photo, is the palm of a hand, palm facing the camera. Scrolling down to the MSNBC photo you will notice a palm facing the camera in the center of the photo again. That seemed odd to me.

Notice on the left of the photo how prominent the Kodak symbol is, and how just below and to the left of that the hand clearly echos the "K" shape of the symbol..

In the second CNN front page, screen grabbed a bit later in the night, what struck me initially about this photo was the odd pairing in the front. Who the hell is that old bearded guy, with the sparkley shirt and jewelry on? And who is this young sailor looking guy with his arm around the old dude? And if you look to the left, who is that hideous creature looking up to the skies with an outstretched out sized arm? This entire photo appears to be a montage.

See blown up version here http://wolfflow.741.com/

In the MSNBC front page photo, that figure on the left is clearly meant to represent the people of the states, as they hand over some deformed stars and stripes shape to the gloved hand reaching in from the bottom right.

In some ways this is the most interesting of the photos and very clearly is meant to be read as comprised of two halves split down the middle along that background column of light and the palm. The spikiness of the statue of liberty shape on the left is mirrored in the star of the Toys-R-Us sign on the right. Below the star are two interesting figures. Connected to the star is what seems to be a woman, wearing something like a kippah or yarmulke (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarmulke). She looks over with a knowing look at the statue of liberty guy on the left. And another interesting thing seems to be the glasses of the other figure you can see: the last digit of his "2006" glasses seems to have been messed with, making it an ambiguous 6 or 8, i.e., 2006 or 2008.

One final thing I wanted to mention. In the final photo, the blowup of the FOXNEWS.com front page photo, if you look toward the top right, on what is meant to be some billboard I guess, something is going on in that area but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Take a look and let me know what you think. I did not alter these photos in any way other than to resize them. They struck me as having a sinister tone, but you may see it differently.