Conclusion

To conclude I think each magazine, advertising agency and ultimately photographer, needs to be a little more conscious about their effect on society, especially peoples image within it, and how photo-manipulation has the power to change everybody.


An ideal solution would be to revert to 'naturalism' (the art of not faking images by means of posing, lighting re-touching etc. What you see is what you get.) in photography and digital imaging. However ideal doesn't mean realistic. In a realistic situation, standards should be placed limiting photo-manipulation. These standards exist today, but are not enforced enough and are certainly not strict enough to allow images like the ones below to continue to be produced. What king of 'reality' is this? The model looks like a china doll! Is this what we want the younger generation to aspire to?

Personally I use as little manipulation as possible on my images. Mostly I do not use it at all. When I manipulate my own images it is creatively, for example using the history brush tool in photoshop. It is not airbrushing.


If someone is pretty enough to be a model they should not need re-touching. If they need re-toucing they are clearly not pretty enough to be a model. If there was no such thing as the extremely synthetic 'reality' of todays images, then everyone should be pretty enough to be a model. Something for you to think about.