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Yule Heibel's Library tagged photoshop   View Popular, Search in Google

Nov
1
2010

Very well-done sophisticated images of women (models), but I'm not so sanguine as the photographer, regarding the meaning and message. I see good-looking women made to look perfect, and from that I see a narrative developing that tells all of us women that our natural state is never ever good enough. This isn't something that pleases me, irrespective of the visual pleasures these photographs may provide.

beauty fashion photography feminism women photoshop m_seth_jones

Apr
10
2009

Scroll down for the part I bookmarked this article for ("We Live in a Virtual World"). Amazing image comparison, great commentary by David Byrne. The Redbook cover (with its perfected, photoshopped woman), compared to the original photo of the "plainer" model is amazing because it shows how it's the accretion of *detail* that makes for the overall effect - which cuts both ways, insofar as it makes the model more "perfect" and beautiful, and insofar as it's more pernicious. There's no One Big Thing you can point to that's wrong with the "improved" version. It's in the aggregate, which takes on an insupportable weight.

body_image feminism photoshop

  • 03_07_09_a_faith
    • Yule Heibel
      Yule Heibel on 2009-04-10

      note: curve of shoulders/ back eliminated; arm made more slender; subcutaneous fat on back above waist removed; waistline slimmed and back stretched; collarbone tendons' shadowing removed - these details have the effect of giving the model an *effortless* lightness and a lift that's nearly impossible to attain (you can see it's not easily possible because of the strains, such as curved shoulder/back and flexed tendons around collarbone showing in the original).

      In the face, the photoshopped version achieves a similar effect of effortlessness - which is pernicious, insofar as no one can really achieve it effortlessly, yet you (if you're female) might think there's something wrong with you (or men might think you're haggard or a shrew) if you don't have that aura of floating on air. To whit: all indications of physically straining to hold the pose are erased, the face is turned into a smooth mask; the lines/pouches under the eyes indicate the effort involved in smiling so brightly, so they're erased; the lines running from nose to mouth corners, which indicate similar strain, are also erased; the face is lightened, which suggests there's no added blood pumping through the system to keep all this going - it's just easy/ effortless - and so the woman is literally drained of vital signifiers, imbued instead by an ethereal, angelic perfection ...that is anything but effortless or easy to achieve, much less maintain.

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