Selling a fantasy or ethical photography?

[todd_k.]

Physical insecurity has been on the rise in our society for some time

now. Young women want to look taller, thinner, blonder, and bigger

breasted. More and more people are flocking to cosmetic surgeons

because they are unhappy with their physical appearance. This trend

is reflected in TV shows like Dr. 90210, What Not to Ware and any

other number of reality TV programs. Once cosmetic surgery was

something secretive and almost shameful. Now it is celebrated.

Traditionally short lightning, posing and a slight amount of

diffusion were used to help de-emphasize a persons weight, or any

other physical features that a client might have been self conscious

about. Then the lab handled stray hairs, minor blemishes, and skin

imperfections. Now with Photoshop, we lasso, liquefy and take off a

couple of pounds, shrink ears, straiten noses, enhance bust lines,

lift sagging eyelids, and perform any number of other major physical

alterations. Recently a poster on the People Photography forum has

admitted that he usually removes some weight and unattractive bulges

before he presents his clients with proofs. Is this an ethical

practice? At what point does a portrait become a fantasy? When a

couple comes in for an engagement shoot or a woman comes in for a

bridal setting, how much do you touch up, and when? Do you

automatically touch up the proofs, or only the print orders? To what

degree to you alter a clients image, and do you so unilaterally or

with that persons consent. Or, do you only touch up images at the

request of the client? Are we supposed to create real images that

reflect the best that a person can look at that moment, or are we to

create a fantasy of what that bride could look like after a nose job

and eight months of health eating and exercise? This was a long

debated topic between my mentor and myself, to this day, neither of

us have a rock solid stand on this issue. What is your personal

philosophy regarding image enhancements and simple touch ups? Later

I will revel my own personal opinions.

[rick_waldroup3]

I suspect several years down the road that portrait and wedding work will have very little to do with how a person actually looks and much more with how they want to be perceived. Much like painters did before photography existed. There is nothing new in this, it has always been around. It is just much easier now with the advent of digital capture but photographers have been manipulating the truth since the medium was born.

[todd_k.]

I apologize; I meant to post this in the wedding and social event forum.

[rdkirk]

You're probably talking about me.

 

First, there is the fact that reality is relative to position. Einstein pointed that out. You are over there and I am over here and not only will our perspectives never be the same, but each perspective will, in fact, be reality in its own right.

 

A middle-aged woman wakes up in the morning, puts on her make-up, and looks at herself in her budoir mirror. What she sees really is what she sees. The fact that her face is in motion and the lights fill in the fine wrinkles such that the effects of the last five years aren't apparent IS reality. When she turns her head in a certain way, for a moment the skin is distorted and large wrinkles appear that normally don't, and disappear the moment she turns back. When she leans forward, flesh bulges in ways it normally doesn't--she straightens and the bulges disappear.

 

But when I put the light of an electronic flash against her skin and my camera FREEZES her face, all those age-related spots and wrinkles become glaringly apparent. I tell her to turn her head, and those creases in her neck appear. I tell her to lean forward, and the flesh moves out of its normal position. I snap the picture, and all that is also frozen in pixels or silver halide. And that is also reality--the reality of a split second that nobody ever actually sees.

 

But it's not the reality she sees in her mirror every day. It's not even the reality her husband or children see when they look at her. When I process an image with the intent of giving pleasure to the woman and her family, I will at the very least restore the beauty that I knew the camera took away--that's no more than restoring the reality she knows.

 

I KNOW the camera emphasizes things we don't normally see. Moreover, flattening a round shape onto a 2-dimensional surface also distorts the shape beyond what we normally see.

 

What's reality? Is the camera image real? Or is making the camera image look like what the eye sees real? Sometimes we want the surrealistic mechanical reality of the camera's eye. Sometimes we want the psychologically manipulated reality of the human eye.

 

If it's the former, then we should never adjust for color temperature, because white horses really are blue in the open shade. The camera sees it...our eyes don't.

[J.W. Wall]

The current issue of Professional Photographer (Feb. 2006, p. 64) has an article about Scott Dupras, Marquette, Mich., who regularly paints his photographic images, but not all of them. Looks like one of many evolutionary moves, of which re-sizing subjects may be another....

[cálico]

But, isn't it also true of the women and men (yes, men today do that, too) that put on make-up before leaving her/his apartment also doing the same? Doesn't make-up enhance (sometimes what ain't there... ) and/or hide blemishes or other physical faults... isn't this the same? Isn't there also a form of hypocracy there since people look so different without make-up...? Don't high heels give the illusion of someone being taller when barefoot they're much shorter (high heels are no longer used to show off the shapely muscles of the calf)

 

Don't some people use make-up as a masque to hide their true appearance? Where does the hypocracy start, with the individual or the photographer? Granted, it may start with the individual but, then, the photographer can very well be accused of perpetuating the hypocracy, no? A lot has to do with the cosmetics industry and all of their ads that flood our magazines, TV ads, billboard signs, etc., don't you agree?

 

Women and now men re-shape their eyebrows, use hair dyes and hair pieces, extensions, etc... isn't that the start of the fantasy, before the more drastic cosmetic surgery? What about the use of girdles (before lipo-suction came into vogue)... or, what about the use of padded bras and/or push-up bras before the breast "enhancement" operations come into play? Aren't these also promoting a sort of fantasy? And, doesn't the cosmetic surgery itself also promote an artificial reality, a hypocracy? The cosmetic surgery industry is also promoting their (lucrative) services, too, don't you think?

 

I'm not trying to "push" the proverbial "envelope" here; it's just a curious thought on my part, that's all.

 

Good point to ponder, though. Are photographers the only ones that should have the cornerstone on honesty of images produced? Otherwise, then, we shouldn't pose people to disguise faults or to bring out desirable features, don't you think? (I'm just playing the Devil's Advocate, don't anyone take offense or issue with this statement, please).

 

Should the photographer simply record what the client desires or should the photographer seek to record what he/she perceives to be the reality of a person's form? And, what is the photographer being paid for?

 

Sadly enough, I suspect it has to do with today's society and the eternal quest to stay young longer, or to at least give the appearance of being young longer than our natural years permit.

 

Any thoughts on this from someone else? This is a very interesting topic and it's well worth getting feedback from others.

[daydreamsart]

In my experience with portraiture, the person wants to look like a better version of themself. If I do too much, make them look too good, they complain because it "doesn't look like me!" Who wants a picture of themself that looks like someone else? It's a fine line that I've learned not to cross. Yeah, I might drop a couple of sizes on an over-weight woman, but that's usually how she sees herself anyway! Blemishes simply do not define the person, so I remove them. Properly applied make up would have done that anyway. Softening wrinkles slightly is generally welcomed also. No, I don't discuss these things with the client. That could cause discomfort if it's something they are sensitive about. And yes, I touch up the proofs, too. Never has someone complained or even asked if I made them thinner. There are flattering ways to pose people, and I do what can be done there, and do the rest in PS. Fantasy? not really. More like enhanced reality, and since everyone has their own version of reality, wouldn't that be reality?

[rdkirk]

Wearing makeup is certainly nothng new. Men and women have worn makeup for at least 4,000 years that we have record of. Plastic surgery was practiced by ancient Egyptians.

 

I look at paintings hundreds of years old by the "old masters" like Da Vinci and I do NOT see cowpox scars and such. So this it isn't anything new to eliminate imprefections in images of people.

 

I don't see what "hypocrisy" has to do with it. Wikipedia:

"Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have morals or virtues that one does not truly possess or practice. The word derives from the late Latin hypocrisis and Greek hupokrisis both meaning play-acting or pretence. The word is arguably derived from hypo- meaning under, + krinein meaning to decide/to dispute. A classic example of a hypocritical act is to denounce another for carrying out some action while carrying out the same action oneself.

 

The term hypocrisy is also commonly used in a way which should be more specifically termed a double standard, bias, or inconsistency. An example would be when one honestly believes that one group of individuals should be held to a different set of morals than another group."

 

So I'm not sure what the issue is.

[ilkka]

A passport photograph and documentary, for example in a newspaper, must show the person as he is without digital or other manipulation. If the person wore a thick layer of makeup on her way to the theater and was photographed outside it for tomorrow's newspaper then that is exactly how she looked on that evening. When a person has his portrait made for hanging in his living room wall, then the only criteria how the image should look is that the person likes it enough to hang it on that wall. One can remove wrinkles with cosmetic surgery, or one can do it in Photoshop. Which one is more destructive? Why would one be wrong if not the other?