Perhaps because in recent days I have put more than 1300 miles on my car, I'm thinking about gas prices. The best way to visualize high gas prices would be to have a photograph of my eyes popping out of their sockets when the pump routinely clicked past forty bucks to fill up my little Corolla. But the New York Times has a good way, too. They have a disturbing map visualizing the three parts of the equation: gas prices by region of the U.S., median U.S. income by region, and the real kicker, percentage of income people are paying for gas. The news is, shall we say, not good. Especially, but sadly not surprisingly, for poor, rural Americans.
In browsing the current visual record of images of high fuel prices, I found some similarities to practices of visualizing the mortgage crisis: lots of signs and lots of visual distortion and complex visual representations of human agency. But I also notice photographers attempting to visualize alternatives, too, like juxtaposing gas price signs with images of people on bicycles. I particularly like this visual joke, especially the way the old, banana-seat bike visualizes a link to the gas crisis of the 1970s.
(photo credits: Mike Blake, Reuters; Lisa Esterling, snapshot.parade.com)
Research “peak oil” and visualize horse drawn carriages and the return to country life!
Posted by: Eddie | 12 June 2008 at 01:58 PM