“My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today,” photographer Peter Lindbergh recently reported to “The New York Times” in regard to digital retouching. He added, “Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.”
With this sentiment, Lindbergh brings the “too much or too little” arguments about retouching to an important level of social concern relating to one’s sense of identity. This is a lot more interesting than one of my pet peeves.
One of my pet peeves is when non-photographers use “Photoshop” as a verb that has magical powers, as in: “Photoshop me to make me thinner!” or “You can just Photoshop me so I come out better.” Huh? I can?
I mean, I get the sentiment. But every photographer knows that even the most advanced retouching techniques can’t overcome bad lighting, lens choice, posing, exposure and even the “lying” ingredient of pre-capture “makeup” – to name just a few of the photographic factors we have studied and practiced to make two-dimensional representations look more attractive than the living-and-breathing, three-dimensional human beings they are meant to represent.
As Eric Wilson reports in his “Times” article “Smile and Say ‘No Photoshop’” of May 27, 2009, Lindberg has become so concerned about the implications of extreme retouching that has is taking action:
“Last month, Mr. Lindbergh stirred the pot by creating a series of covers for ‘French Elle’ that showed stars like Monica Bellucci, Eva Herzigova and Sophie Marceau without makeup or retouching. The issue struck a nerve with readers in France, where health officials were already campaigning for a measure to force magazines to note when and how images are altered. But editors of American publications, who last year resisted such a proposal within their trade group, the American Society of Magazine Editors, have also noted a backlash against images that appear manipulated to push an idealized standard of beauty.”
This is interesting stuff. Backlash from concerned health officials in France. Backlash from concerned editors in the United States. But above all, Lindberg’s putting attention on the very nature of how retouching affects how we perceive reality (most notably the concept of beauty in women) and how a few clicks of the mouse can actually hurt the nature of human interactions.
OK. “Hurting the nature of human interactions” is my phrase, and it might sound a little grandiose. Also I maintain that it’s nothing new. Photographers have always taken advantage of the ability “to lie in plain sight” (my phrase again), and viewers have always taken advantage of their ability to believe the unbelievable. (“Look how GOOD I look!,” she says to the photograph, ignoring what she sees in the mirror.)
As Wilson opens his article: “Most readers of fashion magazines are aware that all photographs, at least to some degree, lie.” Sure, but the “some degree” is easily, easily stretched, making photographers and viewers culpable in this lie-based dialog, and also making me suspicious about the value of posting any types of Manipulation Warnings with photographs. (Suspicious = “Thinks it’s ridiculous.”)
I suppose much of the “no Photoshop” backlash comes from the confusion and intersection over the “White Lies” and the “Cardinal Sins” of retouching. Do we refuse to remove a few pimples that are biologically temporary anyway (and that bad lighting can amplify in an “unnatural” way)? Or do we happily engage in wholesale retouching that Wilson says becomes “more blatant and bizarre, sometimes resulting in bodies that defy the natural boundaries of human anatomy.”
Wilson’s article is a great read, with some historical background on retouching excesses (or just enough?) as well interesting perspectives from a number of prominent fashion editors. If you photograph and retouch your subjects (even slightly), you’ll enjoy the read.
As Wilson points out about the bizarre role reversal of retouching: “The implication here is that what can be considered a provocative image in a fashion magazine today is one that shows something real.”
This is definitely interesting. But like Lindbergh I question how far such a “gimmick” of capitalizing on showing how celebrities really (“really”?) look can go towards changing the manner in which humans perceive one another – or the role of self deprecating attitudes that many fashion readers are well known to feel.
What do you think? Am I giving too much power to the “power of retouching” to change human perceptions – in a negative manner – or too little. Maybe I’m just a blowhard. Maybe my “Photoshop me!” pet peeve is actually a good sign, showing a cultural literacy on the topic that will make people feel less crappy about themselves when they see the Cover Girl or Cover Boy.
But then, I’m not sure. I’m relatively well educated on matters of retouching yet I always feel a little fatter when I spy the cover of a magazine featuring an Adonis-like hunk with rippling stomach muscles that would put a six-pack to shame. What we know and how we feel are two different things. How do we as photographers take responsibility (or capitalize on?) our subjects lesser extent of knowledge about what it really means to “Photoshop me!”?