Monday, July 09, 2007

Plastic Surgery or Photo Retouching?











Remember that really cool Dove commercial ("Evolution") from a few months back? Showing all of the airbrushing and changes that are done to models?

This site, iWANEX STUDIO, works to professionally "touch-up" and airbrush photos of top celebrities. It's incredible to go through their before & afters... really makes you wonder how realistic some of these images are and what's manipulated. Check it out, and think twice before comparing yourself to a magazine cover. I put some Before & After images here, but it's really best to go to the site- look at the differences in skin tone, hip size, waist size, etc. I don't mind lighting changes or small hair tweaks- that's just good photography and art, but when you start changing the actual person you're working with, in ways that only a surgeon could do, that's taking it a bit far, isn't it? Not only does it make people strive to live up to an unrealistic standard, but if I were retouched like this, I'd worry about living up to my fake cyber-self.

The blog Catwalk Queen has a good article about it too, dealing specifically w/ Kate Winslet. Evidently, a number of magazines just take the liberty of making changes without asking the stars they're working with. Jamie Lee Curtis worked w/ More magazine a few years back to try and shed some light on what real women's bodies look like, star or not. The article is now on Ladies' Home Journal site.

2 comments:

KA said...

I just wanted to let you know that this is a wonderfl blog post. I, myself, used to be insecure about looking at these photographs of women and wondering why, even though I'm very athletic with a healthy diet, I did not have a body more like them!

Anyway, Thanks for posting this. Do you mind if I link to it?

Jennifer said...

No problem- definitely feel free to link to me. Glad you liked the post-- I'm hoping to get back to writing this week or so in honor of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).

Thanks!