There has been some talk recently about the virtues of photoshop and the idea of manipulating images. The buzz is that the Dove campaign was doctored by a photoshop expert to smooth out the lumps some models had. The point being that Dove’s real women weren’t really real. Then there’s the case of Jamie Lee Curtis being photographed in glorious reality with all her flaws and imperfections on display. Also Katie Couric and the controversy of her doctored images CBS put out in a promo piece her. I’m wondering what the implications are on our young women and their self-esteem.
Looking back on the young women I’ve photographed over the course of my lifetime the ideas of beauty have changed dramatically. The women I shot were never consider Rubenesque but healthy and full of life. There is such pressure on young women today to meet some concept of beauty and health that are unbelievable. I believe that photoshop has added to that pressure and the unobtainable concepts that were forcing our young and not so young women.
Models in there thirties are telling me that they feel old and fat and that no one refers to them as cute anymore. These are healthy young women who are not over weight or have beer bellies. They’re just women who are growing into maturity and have maturing bodies and minds. They is a big difference between humans of twenty and thirty year of age. At twenty were are still a work in progress, we have boundless energy and stamina on our side and little else. At thirty we are far from old but we have a better idea of who we are and time has worked on those hard edges of ours. Looking back on my own life I feel as though I hadn’t yet grown into the man I’ve become. At thirty-five I began to have a idea of what I wanted for the long term, what I would and wouldn’t put up with to get there. It was a time of rebirth or refocus for me..., I finally had a concept of myself as me.
So back to the point which is what are we doing to young people these days? What incredible impossible ideas and values are we forcing the young to grow up with and believe in. We have young people today who are literally dying for our
idea’s of perfection that our photo’s help to create. Don’t we own the responsibility for our images of perfection that won’t abide wrinkles and stretch marks and the occasional blemish or other imperfection that make use beautiful to ourselves and other. I don’t know about anyone else but me and I’m proud when I look in the mirror and see myself in all my imperfect glory and wonder which wrinkle I got from too much partying and which came from too much worrying. I look at the road-map of my face and I see all the hard work it took to get me to this age and all the lumps I had to take to get here and to stay here. I see the life well lived and the love and losses I’ve suffered that make me..., me.
Looking back on the young women I’ve photographed over the course of my lifetime the ideas of beauty have changed dramatically. The women I shot were never consider Rubenesque but healthy and full of life. There is such pressure on young women today to meet some concept of beauty and health that are unbelievable. I believe that photoshop has added to that pressure and the unobtainable concepts that were forcing our young and not so young women.
Models in there thirties are telling me that they feel old and fat and that no one refers to them as cute anymore. These are healthy young women who are not over weight or have beer bellies. They’re just women who are growing into maturity and have maturing bodies and minds. They is a big difference between humans of twenty and thirty year of age. At twenty were are still a work in progress, we have boundless energy and stamina on our side and little else. At thirty we are far from old but we have a better idea of who we are and time has worked on those hard edges of ours. Looking back on my own life I feel as though I hadn’t yet grown into the man I’ve become. At thirty-five I began to have a idea of what I wanted for the long term, what I would and wouldn’t put up with to get there. It was a time of rebirth or refocus for me..., I finally had a concept of myself as me.
So back to the point which is what are we doing to young people these days? What incredible impossible ideas and values are we forcing the young to grow up with and believe in. We have young people today who are literally dying for our
idea’s of perfection that our photo’s help to create. Don’t we own the responsibility for our images of perfection that won’t abide wrinkles and stretch marks and the occasional blemish or other imperfection that make use beautiful to ourselves and other. I don’t know about anyone else but me and I’m proud when I look in the mirror and see myself in all my imperfect glory and wonder which wrinkle I got from too much partying and which came from too much worrying. I look at the road-map of my face and I see all the hard work it took to get me to this age and all the lumps I had to take to get here and to stay here. I see the life well lived and the love and losses I’ve suffered that make me..., me.
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This image is of a healthy thirty-something year old I finally got into my bed. No I wasn’t with her at the same time but it got your attention. This is from my bodyscapes series and is no pshop work beside my copyright. If she has stretch marks or any other imperfections I’m perfectly fine with them.
3 comments:
Regarding the posts Joe and I wrote to which you refer, I was so sorry to see the Dove campaign maligned based on a rumor that apparently could not be proved. The Dove women were indeed lumpy and even OLD. And they came in every color.
Did you know Rudolph the Reindeer was created by Montgomery Ward for an advertising campaign in the 1930s? And halitosis is not a medical term. It was invented by advertisers. Same thing for athlete's foot.
I worked in public relations, and some of what I did was advertising, which is different from PR because it is paid-for space or time. I published a scholarly book about advertising in a global world that has been reprinted in several Asian countries and is in a second edition. So I see advertising from a broad perspective. On the plus side, it is one of the most creative professions and peopled with some of the best creative minds (and greatest photographers) in the world.
Very often commercials exceed the quality of the television programs they support. Having said that, every chapter of my book has an ethics lesson. Most books on advertising put ethics in a separate chapter, but I chose not to do this because I do not believe ethics can be separated from any part of advertising or our lives.
And there's the problem for me. Not photoshopping. But, as Iris Dassault said in a comment on my post: purpose.
The purpose of the Dove campaign was NOT to do what you talk about in your post. It was the opposite. They overturned the ideal of perfection advertisers have created, the 20-something blond, blue-eyed, skinny beauty.
Michael, I couldn't have said it better myself.
Rich used to use a lot of Photoshop to remove blemishes, imperfections and excess fat where necessary. He was very good at it. It got to the stage that models sought him out TFP/TFCD because his Photoshop skills could make the models look like the ideal women they secretly desired to be. They didn't care the images had been modified. They wanted to look like the magazine brochures, they wanted to look like glossy stars.
When he decided not to Photoshop these models any more (because he realised they were beautiful enough, and they didn't need the airbrush treatment - photography should be all about the beauty of the real person) the TFP models complained bitterly. They wanted the illusion. Bringing out their inner character and existing beauty was irrelevant to them. They wanted to look skinny and sleek. They wanted the fantasy.
It was about that time he decided to stop doing TFP/TFCD shoots. He's never gone back on that decision, and it's very rare he uses Photoshop nowadays, other than to tidy up the grey backdrop.
Dr. L your making me think and I appreciate it, I applaud Dove for what they were trying to do. Personally I don’t know if the images were doctored or not but the statement had to be made on behalf of all women out there. And my question still remains, “What are we forcing on our young people?” We are creating a totally false impression of beauty and health for our young people to follow and I might add, drag along some adults. Erin gave this link on her blog, it’s http://www.thenuproject.com/. It has some lovely images of real women in all their glory, yes some have stretch marks and in some images some of the body’s are not what you’d call exactly prime but it’s the truth. We all age sometime’s if we’re lucky and if not then rest in peace. But what exactly is the impression were passing on here? There is an unobtainable bar to the beauty were expecting of our young women and men. I remember a piece of advertizing, I think it was Dove come to think about it where the model was shown with a nekked face and then the make-up and photoshop that was applied to her. They actually elongated her neck to create a more compelling image. How does anyone compete with that image and what does it say to the young women out there who try, not good enough?
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