surfin' fer photogs...

So I admit - every now and again, I like to go look at what other photographers are doing. I like to check up on their pricing and see if I'm still comfortable charging what I am charging. And I like to see what is 'hip' or 'popular.' Although studio portraiture rocked the world in the 80s and 90s, there has been a huge movement towards more freeform photography since the turn of the century, not as stiff and posed and unreal as the 80s and 90s. We see a lot more creative brainstorming, more mobility in pictures, more varied composition, action, props... and yet the images all look decidedly less real. Why?

As much as I respect everyone's right to artistic vision and intent, and love playing around with different finishing in PS almost as much as I did in the darkroom (I like to mimic vintage photos, do hand-tinting, and have a penchant for adding textures every once in a while to make my pictures look like they might have been pulled from a dumpster), this trend towards 'fixing' portraits to the point where everyone looks 'perfect' drives me nuts. I have seen more evenly-toned skin and no flakes newborn pictures this afternoon than I have in my entire life. Children who are playing outside and should have those beautiful ruddy red veiny splotches on their cheeks are sporting a diffused rosy pink blush. Women in their third trimester are not oily or masked anymore or their stomachs ever blemished, and men never seem to have normal-looking stubble anymore - it all looks coiffed.

I know how to do this in Photoshop. I know exactly how to smooth everyone out so they look like they belong in the pages of a magazine. I can make anyone look so perfect, they're unreal! And I don't do it. I refuse. I will take out zits and may take out distracting bits I forgot to ask Mom and Dad to wipe away (boogers aren't pretty) but for the most part, I leave pictures alone. Here's why:

We have been brainwashed by the media to believe that we all need to look a certain way, and Photoshoppers are making a killing by perfecting what we perceive as flaws. OK - so I can understand not wanting to have big festering red zits oozing on your wedding pictures, and I get that sometimes a child gets a bruise or scratch that could stand to be taken out. But I am telling you, there is no light-skinned newborn I've ever seen who doesn't have veiny reddish-purple transparent skin. And it irks the pee outta me that parents and photographers go out of their way to eliminate that appearance. It's a frickin' NEWBORN people. The only thing flawed is the fact we'd even consider trying to give them 'perfect' skin colour. I'm pretty tired of seeing perfect pictures, with the eyes sharpened to the point they look like shiny glass marbles and the skin smoother and as evenly and perfectly tinted as Sweet Dolly's. People don't look like that. Dolls do. Illustrations do. But not real people.

The only thing that irks the pee outta me more than the photographers who over-process, are the people who see those pictures and squeal with delight at how wonderful they are, gushing and oozing over how talented the photographer is. Huh? Well sure, they look perfect! They are great illustrations, based on pictures taken of real people. But they aren't real pictures anymore. They are past the point of looking human, and now look like wax renditions of their former selves. Heck - even statues in wax museums are more realistic than half of what I saw out there today... Fact is, if you saw the original unretouched pictures, they'd probably look a lot like... mine.

What is WRONG with us, that we seek to destroy our perception of reality at every step? And despite most of us knowing that the media 'reality' we see is mostly manufactured, we can't seem to wait until we get a piece of it ourselves. We'll pay someone to make us look unreal, and then hang it on our wall so we can admire what we wished we really looked like? Good. Gawd.

I feel so sorry for our children. Before they cut their first teeth, they've been 'enhanced' for appearances. And now, a client was telling me this past weekend, when the girls who don't wear make-up get graduation photos done, the studios fix their skin, lengthen and darken their eyelashes, put on blush and eyeshadow, and apply lipstick to their proofs, reiterating the fact *just once more* before we get out in the real world to fend for ourselves, that we aren't good enough just the way we are. What are we teaching our daughters about how to perceive themselves? What are we teaching our sons about real beauty in their female counterparts? I feel SO SO sorry for our children.

I know I'm in the minority when it comes to 'fixing' pictures. And I like it that way.

~rant over~