I was scanning magazine covers this past week when I got to wondering: why do they retouch pictures so heavily? It always looks weird to me. I mean, come on, Diane Keaton for LOREAL looks like one of the Olsen twins for God's sake! I know that large pores and tiny lines around the eyes are never as intense in real life as they appear in close up pictures. Making them a tad softer lets you focus on the eyes and lips of a gal. I get that. What I don't get is taking everything away. All of the lines, all of the shadows and all of the pores.
It takes the art out of beautifully lighting a photo. Poor photographers must get so frustrated. The recent Newsweek photo of Sarah Palin is a great example. We are so used to seeing women looking so perfect that allowing an untouched photo on a cover of a national magazine stirs cries of conspiracy. For the record, I agree. Newsweek is insane if they didn't have at least one meeting over the 'roughness' of that photo. They clearly knew it would put her in a very unflattering light.
I have seen some fashion campaign pix doing little or no clean up lately. I love that. You feel like these gals are just beautiful creatures, not over photo-shopped robots. There's my two cents!
Enjoy Pretty,
Brett
VANITYMARK Cosmetics
