supei's Digi-ImagingXperience

Taken by a famous leading Indian photographer, Sharad Haksar, who is well known for doing commercial photography and taking photographs of people doing unexpected things near advertisements, the image is arguably filled with satires and cultural commentaries that could be read by the viewers.

When reading the above image of the boy urinating at the wall and the advertisement with Nike's famous tagline, "just do it" on the wall, the tagline itself seems to be instigating "just urinate"; as the tagline means: "don’t think, don’t ask, don’t talk about it, don't regret it, just do it" (Wikipedia, 2008). A satire on Nike's tagline is evident. Additionally, with the advertisement being old, dirty and ruined, a satire on the brand (image) could be read, seeming suggesting the brand name of Nike to be as such too. On top of that, with Nike being infamous for using sweatshops to produce its shoes and products, the photograph seems to be playing with stereotypes of dark-skin people and children which often are associated with poverty, exploited, oppressed, to highlight the infamous incident. And these satires and cultural commentaries are consistent with other of Haksar's work:


Mastercard: "Priceless" campaign; Coke: Coca Cola... Real


Colgate: "Strong teeth"; IBM vs. Apple(s)


Intel vs. outsourcing issues; Evian: Natural spring water