Beauty is in the eye of the airbrush; is portraying perfection causing more trouble in society than its worth?
In todays society nearly every imagine in magazines from Mens Health to OK Magazine are airbrushed, do we see this as a positive or negative towards the consumer and the publishers, is there an answer? Most of if not all fashion photographers use a type of airbrushing to make their images stand out, attract the passers by’s eye and improve the over all quality and look of the image. Whether this is using photoshop or any other type of photo manipula- tion program it is always the one main this to be tweaked before publishing any photo- graph and it is nearly always done. We understand the idea of airbrushing is to improve the visual look of each pho- tograph. The standard pro- cedure especially in women’s magazines would be to give the face of the model a clear and smooth look, remove any blemishes, spots or moles, whiten teeth, adjust with levels, mirror face, enhance body parts and reducing oth- ers. The list goes on, however you can see what points i am getting at, the appearance of any model in a magazine, especially front cover helps sell the product. The definition according to ‘The Free Dictionary’ online of airbrushing is: to improve the image of (a person or thing) by concealing defects be- neath a bland exterior. This is a simple version of my expla- nation.
Picking out one photographer who uses photoshop to enhance there work was no hard task at all, i had the whole of the photographers library to use. Mario Testino is the photographer i have chose to study to help me come up with an answer or an argument for my chosen question of whether using airbrushing in magazines is portraying the wrong image for society. So here’s a little introduction to my photographer. Testino was born is Peru, in 1976 but didn’t stay long- after finishing studying he moved to London to embrace his career as a photographer. To say; Vogue, Vanity Fair and V magazine are just some of the achievement Testino has made along his Fash- ion career line, Burberry, Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana...i could go on, but i
think you see where i am going. Being one of the most famous Fashion photographers Mario Testino is definitely the perfect individual and idol for this Fash- ion Photography case study. Could i go wrong choosing the best? When putting the two words airbrushing and Mario Testino together (or searching them on google) the first and biggest ar- ticle that pops up is the airbrush mishap with Kate Moss and her daughter Lila Grace. There aren’t many mistakes made my Testino and his editing team, however this one just proves airbrushing is used on even the biggest of models. Saying that after researching, Testino doesn’t hide away from the fact he uses photo manipulation. This is proven in the interview he participated in after the images of the Royal engage- ment of Wills and Kate. There was a big article written in The Telegraph as people couldn’t believe The images of The Roy- als had been airbrushed, but come on think about it even the royals are going to want to have their images professionally worked on after all everyone is going to want to see them. Why do u think Testino is so famous with celebrities? Not only is he a wonderful photographer but also he does a fantastic job at polishing the images off to there best standard! So back to my argument, air- brushing- now we know the best of the best photographers do it, is it seen as a problem? To the celebs who have their image taken its a 50/50 debate as whilst doing my research i
found of Julia Roberts’ L’oreal advert was band from the UK due to excessive airbrushing, not only was Roberts embarrassed and hurt by the amount of airbrushing that was done but the Watch Dog Advertising Standards Authority, held complaints from Jo Swinson quoting “overly perfected and unrealistic images” of women in advertisements. This is true and portrays false ideas of what the product could achieve. The photographer for the shoot was Mario Testino, so in this situation air- brushing i believe shouldn’t be used to such a high standard. After reading this article i also read the comments from the readers, where nearly all of them agreed with the advertising agency, with quotes such as; “Good, its about time somebody stepped up and called them on these BS ads.” -Ni- cole Miller, and “ it is about time! they give every- one false images of how you should and can look but NEVER will be able to!!!!!” -Mwanbolds. So here i have stated two different scenarios of when airbrushing happens and two different outcomes. So maybe airbrushing is acceptable but only in a selected type of photography. When looking into whether airbrushing is effecting our society and the way we feel about ourselves the answer was plain and clear....YES! Many of us have role model or someone we compare our- selves to, and 99% of the people i asked selected a celebrity as a person they compare themselves too, but the images we see in magazine of these people aren’t the originals, some tweaking has always been done and the amount of people who came to me saying they want this and that done to their body or would change to have a certain celebs skin or body size have been fooled by the ways of airbrushing. Yes celebrities have good and bad points about their image, but most maga- zine show perfection and we all know we all have imperfections which make us who we are. After reading all my research, how could i not under- stand how women, like my self take knock backs on their image after seeing these smooth skin, enhanced curves and hour glass figures. We
need to understand only a computer can make perfection, or do we need to lay down when and where airbrushing is accept- able! The latter is my answer! So i had a little go myself at airbrushing a stan- dard studio photo of one of my friends looking relaxed, in her normal day time attire and make. I completely went over board and this is my out come after having; cropped, controlled the levels, exposure, curves, spot healing, smoothed, dodged and burned, colour corrected with the paint brush tool. Does she looked better, well some may say yes, but her personality is nearly gone, and no way does anyone have perfect skin like that? And in all honesty would we want to be without our dimples
and beauty spots, even if they really are the odd mole! I rest my case! Below are my attempts of airbrushing!