2 thoughts on “Suggestions From the Revolution: Sex Lies and Photoshop”

1. I guess that intuitively I knew that there were no limits to what a magazine, any magazine, would go to in order to sell its wares..Regardless of how highbrow, or lowbrow, the magazine and its readership is..

   Since digital photography is not my focus, because I came to computers very late in life, and because I have a limited understanding of, and expertise with, PhotoShop techniques; I was somewhat surprised that a magazine would take different parts of several different women (or men) in order to create a “Perfect Image” for the particular client / job at hand..

   I feel that creating a “virtual” image out of differing body characteristics from multiple models and morphing those disparate, but desirable, characteristics into a single salable image is somehow demeaning to the entire concept of human modeling..In addition, it seems to open up a mare’s nest of legal complications whereas you have different parts from more than one person being represented in the final image..Who gets the credit for the power of the final image??..The model who’s face is shown in the final image??..Or the model with the great ass, breasts, legs, cheekbones, nose, fingers, hips, etc. whose body part(s) were used in the collage that makes up the final image??..

   This type of dishonesty just shows how far advertising is willing to degrade the models concerned, and itself, in order to make money..

   I can fully understand Kate Winslet’s anger with Vanity Fair over the heavily airbrushed and manipulated nude images of her that appeared in the magazine recently..I mean, after all here is a woman that has agreed to show off her naked body in your magazine (does not matter one whit what her motivations were!!) with the pre-conditions that she be photographed as honestly as possible..In other words, show off her flaws, as well as her assets as accurately as possible..Then the magazine comes out and the images that she has given the OK on are not the ones that are published..Instead, someone (several someones??) high up the food chain in the magazine have decided that the honest images that she has approved are not going to sell enough copies of Vanity Fair..So, airbrushed and manipulated images that show Miss Winslety’s body as being “more perfect” than it actually is are the ones that end up in the magazine as it hits the newsstands..These “more perfect” images of Miss Winslet will, and probably do, sell more copies of Vanity Fair than the images that she approved..But, the final images that appear in the magazine ARE NOT WHAT SHE AGREED TO!!!..

   There is an arrogance, and disconnect, going on here with Vanity Fair as concerns Kate Winslet and her nude photo shoot..This disconnect says to most of the general public that regardless of what the model desires and agrees to, even one as influential as Miss Winslet, the magazine knows best; and is going to do as it damn well pleases..

   If I was a model I would be very angry if an image containing my face appeared in print with someone else’s body parts manipulated onto it..Such an image would not be an accurate representation of the model, and as such is a dishonest portrayal of the model to the public..

   Bruce

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2. I think this dove advert put the point over very well in 60 second

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