TAOP - Symbols.

Outline: Find symbols for the following subjects:

• Growth
• Excess
• Crime
• Silence
• Poverty

Growth
Trees, Seeds, Flowers, Babies. These are all things that start off small and grow bigger. Showing the different stages of growth for the first three can show growth, as well as an image of the stages of a baby growing into a toddler, young child, teenager, adult, etc.

Excess
The only idea I could really think of for this was a bulging suitcase. I always think of excess baggage and the idea is to think of something that gets across the idea of too much. Maybe including a weighing scales under the suitcase may work better.

Crime
I had loads of ideas for this one. Guns, Knives, Iron bars, Pirates, A Judge, Handcuffs, Fingerprints. I think all these symbols have to so with crime, even the handcuffs and fingerprints and a judge all make you think of the law which could be used to portray crime as well as justice.

Silence
My first thought was of tumbleweed in a desert. That makes me think of peace, quiet and silence with the concept of being deserted. A 'do not disturb' sign could work or just the simple idea of a finger over lips.

Poverty
This one really did stump me. The only symbol I really thought of was cupped hands but then thinking about it that doesn't really come across as poverty. I have no other ideas.

Conclusion: This was a simple yet great exercise. Thinking about symbols to portray a concept is easy enough but then thinking about photographing that symbol to get the concept across in an image is a little more tricky and you find that some may not work as well as you thought.