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The Times Calls Out Photoshopping Magazines
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The Times Calls Out Photoshopping Magazines |
03/10/09
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03/10/09
And NO DROP CAPS either!
03/10/09
Also, unrelated to Chritter's comment, I can't help but think that this whole thing is how someone like Heidi Klum became fat. Never thought I'd feel sorry for a model, but...
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*le sigh*
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Here at work, lots of retouching gets done. Its usually just enough to not bruise any egos...and it usually ensures job security one way or another. But I'll be damned if I hand over something that looks butchered.
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I vividly recall being a teenager and scrutinizing YM models(remember YM!!) for flaws...and feeling hopeless that I looked so different.
03/10/09
my sister's sr. portrait photographer removed all her freckles and even made her skin less pink. it looks like she is wearing a mask because that is definitely not her real face in that photo.
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It's not so easy to actually live your life that way.
We know, on a conscious level, that these pictures are impossible.
I doubt you could find a woman that thinks that the pictures in magazines are "real."
That doesn't stop them from internalizing the pictures, the thousands of them that they see every day, the thousands that are shoved in their faces, and thinking "I know it's impossible, but..."
Not to mention that the POINT of most of the advertising is "You can never be this good, but if you buy our product maybe you can get close."
Plenty of studies show that these things get to us no matter how often we tell ourselves that it shouldn't. I've been "retouching" my own pictures for fun (taking out people, adding in people, etc) for years, I know how easy it is to change them. I'm going to be learning how to do things like that for a living with motion graphics. I know that most of what we see isn't real, I LIVE that fact.
But I still have the same pitfalls and problems and low self esteem.
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If they're even photoshopping out the positive attributes rather than the "negatives" or "flaws" (as one who has freckles, I resent the implication that they're flaws), then what the hell is the point?
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Honestly, I feel like someone on here has, at some point, said that these mags and the fashion industry promote thin women because they're promoting powerlessness among women, and as much as I believe it, I always think it sounds a little too much like a feminist critique. But to hear someone say it, just like that, and not from a feminist point of view but from a, "Wow, this woman is so powerful and fit -- that's not what we want to advertise" perspective. Fucking blew my mind AND pissed me off, at the same damn time.
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I know I'm in the minority here, maybe I'm just used to it. Or maybe I as a designer in a major fashion retailer, I feel like the entire system is a shithole. Retouched magazine and ad photos are really only a small part of a much larger issue.
03/10/09
nicole richie's thigh being photoshopped into half of itself (which happened way back in the day) is the problem. yes, a product has to sell, but if a model has to be photoshopped into half of herself in order to make that sell, then let's go back to drawing the models rather than taking pictures of them.
03/10/09
I feel like if the world is used to seeing retouched photos (and since it's not a practice that's going to be dropped soon) then I don't feel horrible about getting rid of the random redeye, flyaway hair, or errant bra strap in my own pics :)
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IT'S NOT REAL, PEOPLE!
03/10/09
When it's presented as real, it's a damaging and completely unobtainable standard of beauty. It's hard to keep that in perspective, even for those of us who KNOW it's not real.
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Then we'd drag our fat, cellulitic, beer-sodden asses home on the subway and stick to our couch in the summer heat and eat Hot Pockets.
03/10/09
I kid, I kid. But I love frankenphoto as a verb.
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my thought is well, it sucks, but at least WE'RE aware of it (meaning most of the commenters and readers of this blog.) i think that the general population is still in the mindset of photograph = fact. people are aware of the existence of photo editing software, but i don't think most really comprehend the extent to which it is used.
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Or maybe they do, I dunno. Maybe one is great at making people skinny and another specializes in swapping bodies and heads and the last gets rid of freckles.
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it sold very well btw.
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So next time you're wondering why Victoria Beckham is so damn skinny, imagine what it would be like to see how much airbrushing a magazine thought you needed before you were suitable to appear on their cover.
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@my cousin is an ape:
i actually wished i'd been able to do this too, for my own high school pix... i didn't get any of mine because they came out so wretched. of course, it also doesn't help that the majority of people they hire to take the shots aren't professional photographers by career... lots of them get hired on when the school portrait season fires up and they just need to "enjoy photography." taking great shots of people is an art and so the photolabs figured out they'd compensate for the lack of photographic talent with the magic of digital compositing.
03/10/09
that's so insulting. it's like some people who get their hands on photo retouching software think they've become gods or something. especially when somebody has natural "color" under their eyes, the way a lot of ethnicities do, and suddenly it gets removed because it gets called out as undereye shadows.
03/10/09
i can imagine now especially with the insane retouching in magazines, etc... people want temporary plastic surgery, done digitally.