Increasingly desperate quest to find photos to illustrate news stories about Eurozone crisis

In Der Spiegel, Friederike Ott polls Europe's photographers on their increasingly desperate quest to find compelling images to use in illustrating stories about the Eurozone crisis. Taking pictures of distressed Euro coins isn't cutting it anymore.

"It is difficult to keep finding a new approach," he says. "I'm glad the euro coins have different designs in each country. That makes it possible to vary things at least a bit."
Lighting effects can help. "A euro coin that is half in shadow immediately looks far more dramatic," he says. When Spain and Italy came under pressure in financial markets a few weeks ago, Stratenschulte lit sparklers and placed them behind two euro coins standing on their edges. The head of King Juan Carlos and the Leonarda da Vinci's Vitruvian Man stood in a sea of sparks.

Update: In the comments, Sagodjur nails it:

To paraphrase Orwell:
"If you want an illustrative photograph of the European debt crisis, stage a scene involving a one-percenter's Testoni dress shoe stamping on an impoverished human's face - forever."

The Absurd Quest for Euro Crisis Images (via Naked Capitalism)

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MORE: economics • finance • happy mutants • media theory • photography

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Boundegar

Because illustrating the story with angry unemployed people would be so gauche.
Aravind Moorthy

Have we run out of photos of Angela Merkel looking grumpy?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Have we run out of photos of Angela Merkel looking grumpy?
  
  Now that Sarkozy’s been wished to the cornfield, her public profile seems to have diminished by an order of magnitude.
  - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
    
    You could always take pictures of Helmut Kohl, he looks like a constant crisis.
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    To be fair, it also required the loss of the one thing that could drive Sarkozy and Merkel together – their joint loathing of Burlsusconi….
- TheMudshark
  
  They should get one of these lemon squeezers:
  http://www.amazon.de/Dinamo-ANGIE-Zitronenpresse/dp/B000W4QZVM
  
  From the reviews:
  “A must have for all comrades. There´s no more enjoyable way to squeeze a lemon.”
GabyYYZ

How hard is it to take a picture of a cow turd?
Sagodjur

To paraphrase Orwell:

“If you want an illustrative photograph of the European debt crisis, stage a scene involving a one-percenter’s Testoni dress shoe stamping on an impoverished human’s face – forever.”
nixiebunny

I just put a penny on the tracks and retrieved it after a freight train ran over it. That would make an excellent picture – especially if they caught the train in the act.
msbpodcast

The debt crisis has no basis in fact.

Money is a manufactured construct, specie is nothing but what we use to keep score, loans were supposedly made in good faith.

They are changing the rules as the game is in progress. And now everybody’s losing.

Sorry but its a system as shabby as it is idiotic.

If they put any denomination at any interest rate, it will not stop the tides from coming in or the sun from shining.

Burn all of the euros and maybe you can cook your meals on the flames.

This is an entirely artificial crisis. Its as real as you want it to be.

Once you stop believing in it, they have no power over you.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/WETVWFYPO7BK3WSROHFRAEVXNM Russell
  
  The crisis may be manufactured, but the effects on people are very real.
  - ocker3
    
    Exactly, just because a few (or even dozens, or hundreds) of people opt out of the paper money system doesn’t mean it will come crashing down. What is needed is some way to move the majority of the world’s wealth down the socio-economic ladder, with a populace-driven move towards massive investment in renewables, so we can halt the rush towards over-utilisation of the world’s finite assets.
    
    I’m sure we can have that done by 5pm next weekend, who’s with me?
- Rindan
  
  You know, there is a magical fairy-tale land like where people have stopped believing in money. The land is called Zimbabwe starting in 2000…it isn’t the good kind of magical fairy-tale land.
  
  Complex technological societies need money or they stop being complex technological societies. Until our evil AI overlords are able to bring us a functioning planned economy that the communism of the 20th century couldn’t (who also had to resort to using money), there is literally no way humanly possible to convert raw minerals into something as complex as a single microprocessor, much less a full fledged computer . It is a small miracle the system we have works as well as it does.
  
  Money maters. If you fuck up the value of your money, regardless if you believe in it or not, you are going to experience the consequences.
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Use Kanellos the Protest Dog for every article.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SGVfcM5NOmM/S_ERh04EyRI/AAAAAAAAA-8/N4R_VpFMBXo/s1600/kanellos_rebeldog3.jpg
Jake0748

Why don’t they just drape a Euro note over some cat’s head? (Preferably a grumpy looking cat).
- Just_Ok
  
  That’s so Saturday.
onepieceman

This is easy to solve. Just post images of all the people and institutions that asserted it would bring prosperity and harmony, calling everyone who disagreed with them (and correctly predicted the precise nature of the crisis) “nutters” or worse. People need to be reminded of who is guilty, particularly since the whole business was imposed (and continues to be imposed) anti-democratically.
- onereader
  
  So it’s all the Euro’s fault, as demonstrated by the wonderful state of the economy in all the places where they don’t use the Euro, like the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    Juxtapose a one Euro coin with a ten Yuan note with an (ungrumpy) picture of Mao.
  - onepieceman
    
    It is possible for bad things to happen for different reasons.
    - twianto
      
      Well, the country I’m from originally is in great shape, lowest unemployment and highest GDP/capita ever. Mostly because of the EU and the Euro (and yes, that country is a net contributor).
      
      Go find someone else to blame.
      - wrybread
        
        I don’t think anyone’s arguing that every country that switched to the Euro is in a shambles. But then again the effects of this crisis are just beginning…
      - UFIA
        
        wrybread
        Sort of like every state that uses the dollar.
      - twianto
        
        That would be just plain incorrect.
fishbane

Anyone want to take a pic of a human? Just a thought.
PurpleWyrm

I was surprised to discover
a news site using a picture from my Flickr stream to illustrate an article on the Eurozone crisis. The graphic? A map of countries features in Scandinavia and the World.
trentondouglas

How about a roomful of dogs playing poker?
http://twitter.com/erocdrahs shardcore

I can offer reasonable rates on publication of my paintings ‘Corporate Fight Club’, which were inspired, in part, by the Eurozone Crisis…

http://www.shardcore.org/cfc/