A Canadian gal living in Britain with 3 men and a dog. Wine helps.

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Friday, November 04, 2011

Capturing the True Essance

I understand that times are changing and the world of technology can be amazing and wonderful.  I understand that today's children are being raised very differently to the way previous generations have been raised; many of these changes are great, some of them not so.  I'm not going to start ranting about how I think too many kids are wrapped up in 'cotton wool' or being spoiled to the extreme or even how materialistic the world has become.  I'm going to stop myself from making this about my thoughts on children and the varying extremes of raising them because I don't have any of my own and some of you might tell me I'm not qualified to raise such issues in the first place.  Because as we know, all childless women are clueless when it comes to child rearing (yes, I am rolling my eyes and smiling). 

However I've steered a little of track from what I originally meant to yell at talk to you about today.  I'm a little sad that the world is obsessed with appearances to the point where it's not only magazines that are doing things like this:

(What the hell was wrong with her before? When Faith Hill needs to be thinned down it's a sad state of affairs)

No wonder so many young girls (and even some boys) are obsessed with their weight and develop eating disorders.  Personally I think the before shot looks much better and I don't think I'd be on my own.

I suppose I can see the reason behind the editing of this picture:

 yet at the same time I think the first picture is more 'relatable'. But 'relatable'doesn't seem to matter when you are of celebrity status. God forbid you have a few flaws.

Photoshop is an awesome tool.  I realize that many of you take great joy in it and spend hours 'editing' photos.  Making a bride's smile whiter and brighter or erasing a small blemish; I love it when I see pictures that have been 'softened up' or when the back ground is a bit out of focus (although my husband can manage this with just his camera).  I imagine photoshop can go a long way in helping someone's self image.  But at the same time, if you have to move people from one photo and place them in another because their eyes were shut in the first photo, I struggle to understand how that is a true image. I completely get it when people/items are 'photoshopped' into a picture for design purposes i.e. the banner of your blog, invitations, etc.  What I can't  do is give credit to a photographer that has photoshopped a picture to the point where it hardly represents the original shot any longer. How can they be acknowledged as a brilliant photographer? 

Sure there are plenty of pictures that I would love to have 'slimmed down'; Why couldn't there have been an editing program available when my school photos were taken? I would have loved to have had the option at the time, yet as awful as most of them are, they remind me of the awkward teenager who couldn't keep her eyes open, smile naturally or have nice, clear skin.  They remind me of the girl I was back then, and if nothing else, they provide me with a good laugh. 

2 comments:

Tina said...

I agree. People have a tendency to go severly overboard when it comes to photoshop. The only time i ever change people in pictures (eyes etc) is in group shots. People dont pay for pictures when the reaction is (what a great picture, i wish he/she wasnt blinking). I use it to enhance colors already there, but not much else. Although, i did do a fun shot of a woman at work and as a joke gave her huge boobs. :)

Laraf123 said...

In the "After", Faith's arm looks like a chicken bone! In both, she looks like she's 25 and we all know that she is not.

I think it's horrible when people cut and paste subjects in their photos. "Oh, I couldn't get the family to sit by the Christmas tree together because so and so weren't speaking. I just photoshopped our Christmas card." Okay, those people have a lot more problems than just bad pictures!