The Distortion Of Beauty?

Today I wanna talk about beauty and photography and people's perceptions. First check out the video on this website. I came across it on YouTube.com during a search for photography-related videos.

Campaign For Real Beauty

Also, check out this one:

Extreme Photoshop Makeover Video

First off, let me be clear I'm all for the idea that little girls should have positive self esteem and all that. Of course that's a good thing. I don't have any real quarrel with whatever it is that Dove's doing. What I want to address here are some of the youtube comments and moreover just the general knee jerk reaction people have when presented with the realities of digital imaging. This whole "boo hoo fashion photography is a lie" pretense I find extremely smug and condescending. I resent the idea that somehow showing great looking photos in magazines is deceiving or somehow ripping off the public. Yes, I know nobody made that exact claim, but that is the vibe I get. Dude these photos are bullshit, that chick isn't hot! or something like that. Photoshop can make anyone into a supermodel, man! Utter nonsense!

The fact is, people who are models are indeed more attractive than the average person. THAT'S WHY THEY GET THE JOB. That's why THEY are in magazines and YOU aren't. They're beautiful because they've got the right geometry going on. They've got symmetry and proportions most likely fitting within the golden ratio. They are exceptions to the norm. It doesn't mean that everyone else is ugly by comparison. It's just nature at work. Check out BBC's "The Human Face" hosted by John Cleese for more of this. It's a fascinating show!

Did anyone really think that girl was a hideous hag when she first sat down? No, she IS a good looking woman, they simply did the things you do when you want to make a striking looking billboard. Yes it's very extensive, but they're selling an image here, they're not doing a science project where person X is photographed and documented. I also have a feeling that Dove's video intentionally made sure that the model looked a little extra schlubby in order to drive their point home more. Okay, we need a model who's having a minor skin breakout... But that's just speculation.

I will never forget the time I was on vaction with my folks as a young lad. We were at some outdoor museum thing. There was a photo crew amongst the tourists doing what appeared to be a fashion shoot of some kind. There were a couple female models there and I was awestruck by their beauty. They looked so unlike normal people that I couldn't take my eyes off them. My parents were moving on down the exhibits but I wanted to stay and look at these girls because they were so surreal to look at. No Photoshop there, just exceptionally good looking people. One of the girls' sweater was pinned back in the rear so it better hugged her figure. This was a little "behind the scenes" trickery that I remembered. But does any of the preparation that goes into a photo shoot mean these were dull looking people faked into being gorgeous by deceptive artists? Hardly!

The ONLY thing I can agree on as being disingenuous about what they did in the Dove video this are the very final edits where the actual geometry of the model's body is altered. Same thing with the other person's video. I think they went too far. I wouldn't especially feel right doing that extensive work myself. But hey, I don't work with people photos usually. That's just my own personal "photoshop ethics" if you will. There's certain lines I wouldn't want to cross myself.

But look, this is art and advertising, not fucking journalism! Do you want magazines full of the caliber of photos found in the average joe's family snaps? Good luck selling that. Please go ahead, go and try to market a magazine loaded with schlubby punch-flash photos of people with acne! Maybe our idea of beauty is better served by a rag like the National Enquirer? (who probably retouch photos in the opposite direction, to make celebrities uglier than usual) No glamourous retouching there! How about the GARBAGE photos they take of you at the DMV? How about a magazine full of DMV shots? Those are pure reality, right? No Photoshop magic in sight! It MUST be more true to reality, right?

All photography is a lie. That's why we love it so much, because it distorts reality. That's what makes it interesting. If you want reality don't look at photos. No matter what they are it will be an illusion. A photo can not only make a good looking girl into a fabulous angel but it can take the ugliest, most grizzled old person and turn them into something visually interesting. That's the whole magic of photography. Even you have been made to look better than you really are in your own photos. Were your parents wrong to dress you nice for class photo day in the third grade? Was the teacher wrong for grabbing a comb and fixing the cowlick at the back of your head? Were they distorting reality and making for photos that would cause other children to have low self esteem?

The other basic thing to remember is that we're talking about STILL images. A fixed image doesn't change and thus has to be somehow attractive to us, otherwise we wouldn't bother looking at it. Reality is constantly moving, the light on your face is changing constantly. You are making different expressions and moving your body. Take some of those slices in time and put them in a photograph and you might turn out ugly. Take others and you might look really hot. I have a theory that people look completely ridiculous 50% of the time and that the only reason we can stand ourselves is that our constant motion combines these looks of goofiness with looks of beauty and the result is a tolerable combination. You just have to look at a video of a person talking in frame by frame steps to see that in some cases they look stupid.

Yes, it's not good if your sense of self-worth is hinged upon what you see in a fashion magazine or billboard. DUH! If you really get depressed because beauty greater than yourself exists, well then you really do have a problem. YOU have a problem, not the magazine, not "society", YOU do. Just don't be trashing the talented photographers and digital retouchers who make images that people WANT TO LOOK AT just because you're bitter. As I said, they are creating aesthetically pleasing images. That's good enough for me. Should the great painters of history be similarly scoffed at for portraying reality in a more favorable light? An image can mean something different for each person, this is good. I just think that to interpret the sight of any beautiful imagery as a commandment to compare one's self to the art is a grave miscalculation. We're smarter than that aren't we?