Life cycle of a stock photo part 3

This conceptual stock photo of a United States dollar stuck with surgical tape could convey two very different views of the United States.

It could convey a hostile, negative, unsympathetic attitude towards America or it could evoke a friendly, positive, admiring attitude towards America, although it would demand a certain amount of vision, or the ability to ‘think out of the box,’ to take this view.

Dollar bill wrapped in surgical tape

A negative view of America in the current financial crisis, as portrayed in conceptual stock photography

How can it be viewed in these two very different ways?
Well, the surgical tape represents a medical situation, an emergency medical situation.
When it is stuck to a United States dollar it perhaps suggests that the United States – represented by the dollar – is in an emergency medical situation, that it is in such a financial crisis that it has to be ‘patched up’ with surgical tape.

A more positive view of America and foreign aid, as portrayed in conceptual stock photography

Let’s balance this negative view of America by taking a more positive view. Let’s ‘think out of the box’ and look at the photo in a completely different way. Let’s look at it in the following way.
The surgical tape that is stuck to the United States dollar doesn’t suggest that the American economy as represented by the dollar is an emergency medical situation.
It suggests that the surgical tape is sticking the dollar to an object, instead.
What is surgical tape usually stuck to? It is usually stuck to surgical dressings, wound dressings.
What are these wound or surgical dressings usually applied to? They are (obviously) usually applied to a wound, to a cut or deep abrasion. In other words, they are usually applied to something that is hurt.
Ok, let’s suggest that the dollar is a wound dressing, a surgical dressing, and that the surgical tape will be used to stick it to a hurt.
What hurts does America stick dollars to? Quite a few things. Poorly-financed, friendly foreign intelligence agencies springs to mind.
However, America also sticks dollars to other causes, and they include entire foreign economies that have been hurt, not just poorly- financed friendly foreign intelligence agencies.
And of course, it usually sticks dollars to these economies in the form of foreign aid, and this foreign aid is invariably in the form of United States dollars.
This post is a continuation of the post life cycle of a stock photo part 2.