Photo Manipulation: Reasons to Revise Your Reality

 Everybody knows that every magazine cover photo is retouched - right? It's a never-ending quest to make the model perfectly pleasing to the eye - at least according to the editor or art director. "Photo manipulation" is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction), through analog or digital means. Photo manipulation is as old as photography itself; contrary to the idea of a photo having inherent verisimilitude ( which is likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact's probability, gotta throw in some SAT words once in a while).

Photoshop circa 1940

Photo manipulation has been regularly used to deceive or persuade viewers, or for improved story-telling and self-expression. Oftenly even subtle and discrete changes can have profound impacts on how we interpret or judge a photograph which is why learning when manipulation has occurred is important. As early as the American Civil War, photographs were published as engravings based on more than one negative.




We may be aware of retouching, but that doesn't mean we are immune to the subtle feeling of self-loathing that may result from seeing these images every day of our lives. It's time to stop thinking "I wish I looked like that". It's time to start saying "Gee that retouch job is a bit overdone" - and then getting on with a life that runs deeper than a piece of celebrity skin. Here is an eclectic and bemusing collection of images that demonstrate the phony art of retouch. You'll see stomachs flattened, skin blemishes removed, breasts made fuller, navels made 'perfect', limbs made skinny, and waistlines lose inches. Even a 12 year old boy can download a copy of Photoshop, grab a retouching tutorial, and create whatever they want.

12yr olds tend to be more creative

 This has strong affects on Body Image, which can be described as how individuals see themselves when looking in a mirror, or when picturing themselves in their mind, and their ideas about their body, such as height, shape, weight and age. Essentially, body image describes how one perceives one's appearance to be in relation to others, which in many cases may be dramatically different from one's objective physical condition or how one is actually perceived by others.


A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that a culture-wide sexualization of girls (and women) was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image. Similar findings associated with body image were found by an Australian government Senate Standing Committee report on the sexualization of children in the media.

These examples are not extreme, practically every magazine on display on News stands and Shops features retouching that is not only disproportionate, but is expected and considered the norm (unfortunately, I could not find all the information on the retouched images):

Repositioned her head, eyes, and hair strands,
Thinned waist, thighs and knees,
Raised and enhanced chest/cleavage.

Removed bags from under eyes,
Removed wrinkles,
Brightened eyes, hair, and skin tone.

Thinned stomach, hips, and calf muscle,
Removed bags from under eyes, repositioned eye lids,
Defrizzed and repositioned hair strands.

Enlarged chest,
Added volume to hair,
Softened eyes and eye brows.

(on set for photo shoot, and final published photo) Smoothed and thinned stomach, shrunk belly button,
Raised chest, altered swimsuit top,
Evened skin tone, removed tan lines.

Pencil vs. Camera

For some artists ordinary drawing is just not enough exciting so they decide to take some extreme efforts in creating something completely different and unique.

Ben Heine is one of those brave artists who do not afraid to try to do impossible things. 

Of course, his drawings are far away from impossible but at least, you shall agree with us when we say that his artworks are extremely hard to achieve.

In order to create his artwork, Ben has to be very good in three things: drawing, balancing or positioning and photographing.

His artworks contain all of these three skills combined together and he have to be perfectly precise while doing that because if one of those skills are not good enough, his artwork cannot be completed.

We have collected a few of his masterpieces where you can see how Ben combines the real word and the world of painting in his unique way.

UNSUNG HEROES: Steve McCurry Photography

Today is August 19th, World Humanitarian Day. Seems like a good time to shine a light on health workers of the world,  the unsung heroes who run toward disasters when everyone else is running away.

These are the people who deliver babies, comfort the dying, treat the sick, and put themselves in harm’s way. 
Health workers risk their lives when they treat people with drug-resistant TB, Ebola, Marburg, and injured people in war zones.   They refuse to give up even when it looks like all hope is lost.

STEVE MCCURRY PHOTOGRAPHY

Steve McCurry (www.stevemccurry.com) is a master image-maker renowned for capturing the human consequences of war and civil conflict in color-soaked portraits and photojournalistic scenes. His award-winning portraiture showing war's impact on the human face has appeared in most major magazines worldwide. McCurry has published many books, including In the Shadows of Mountains, Looking East, Steve McCurry, The Path to Buddha: A Tibetan Pilgrimage, Sanctuary, South Southeast, Portraits, Monsoon, and The Imperial Way. Between assignments, he conducts international workshops and prepares large prints for his exhibitions around the world.

McCurry's most recognized photo is that of "Afghan Girl", a previously unidentified Afghan refugee. The image itself was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the National Geographic magazine and her face became famous as the cover photograph on the June 1985 issue. The photo has also been widely used on Amnesty International brochures, posters, and calendars. The identity of the "Afghan Girl" remained unknown for over 15 years until McCurry and a National Geographic team located the woman, Sharbat Gula, in 2002.

Steve McCurry: 

Worldwide Workshops 

Every year for the past 10 years, I’ve conducted photography workshops all over the world—Burma, India, Tibet, Morocco, Tahiti. I organize them personally. We have a two-week workshop coming up in March 2009 in India. I’ll be taking my H3DII and Nikon D3s. The people who come to our workshops have a passion for photography and want to take their work to another level. We show them how I would approach a place or subject, so they can learn to develop their own approach. We go over the principles of how you work in this or that light, and work with shapes and forms, etc. It’s about discovering what is unique about a place and how to get a sense of the place in pictures. Everybody has a different idea of what an interesting picture looks like, but I think we know an interesting picture when we see it.

Some people don't really understand the level of commitment that's required at the workshops. We go out and shoot in the morning, have lunch, shoot after lunch, and keep shooting until it gets dark. Once they’re actually there on the ground working with the people, things start to make sense and the message starts to emerge.

Each day, we put together a slide show and look at everybody’s work together on our laptops, talk about what’s good, how it could have been done better, and so on. When we look at the pictures, hopefully, we’ll be amazed and moved. Emotion. That’s what it’s about.

SMALLZ & RASKIND PHOTOGRAPHY

Smallz and Raskind are renowned celebrity photographers, well known for their quirky and weird, but not terribly provoking or controversial. The safe bet choices for magazines who want to be edgy without pissing off the prudish. This does not mean they are the PG, watered-down version of modern photography... oh no! They have a gift of showing people in intriguing settings or props, which is what makes their work stand out. As can be seen from these photos... Their latest work can be seen on their S&R facebook fan page