Saturday, September 27, 2008

SIMPLE HATERS

When did it become a point of contention that allows "haters" or non photographic artisans to criticize someone's art in touching up a picture and saying something like "photoshopped up the ass" when they don't have a clue....or they themselves photoshop "their own pics". Have you taken a serious look at the latest campaigns...editorials...and even catalogs recently??? What do you think the images should look like. Even pedestrian or average folk don't want their own pics posted ANYWHERE without a bit of touching....correction, MAJOR retouching....so let's come off this 'models should be all perfect' trip. Just go to Marquee or any industry party and take a look up close at the models in the room....they are beautiful...but THEY ARE NOT PERFECT! Photographers make 'em that way. Even artists perfect or distort to some extent their own view of the objects of their desire. Society has even taken it to a new level of perfection that even some of our own actors and actresses don't want to go out in the daylight due to the slight imperfections that add "character" to an already beautiful visage. It's like we've become Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire"....where we are afraid to go out til after dark...I don't get it. In the end...it's merely art....so give it a rest.

Let me add....I definitely don't like over photoshopping myself.....I like that element of realism. But to say a simple picture is enhanced and retouched...and is photoshopped up the ass (and mind you...some are)...it a gross exaggeration of "what is"...and ultimately denigrates to simple unwarranted jealousy. That is why we in the business rely heavily on the hallowed polaroid or digital....but let me take it a step further. Take a look....lol.

BEFORE
AFTER

12 comments:

daan said...

Well said, well spoken.
I myself don't like extreme photoshopping either (leave the skin as natural as possible or take a better looking model). But every photo needs a little bit of shopping, making it more attractive, matching the colours, blurring and sharping.... I think the shoot in the previous post proves there has not been that much shopping going on, looks natural enough to me.

Oliver Reeve said...

It's a shame that you felt that you had to address such an ignorant comment.

Just keep doing what you do and ignore the haters who don't know how to express constructive criticism without having to rely on obscenities.

Anonymous said...

Dave, i can believe you have time for a maybe wannabe and hater, that knows nothing about fashion.
Ignorance is the word, let them be

I am proud of the models (male and female) on your board.

Linda Gold
Editorials2

Anonymous said...

i don't know why Dave's talkin about haters suddenly, maybe I missed something. But yeah Dave, let them be whatever they wanna be... at the end they all want to be like you or other models. period.

Anonymous said...

The technique being used here if VERY common and can be seen everywhere these days, including the recent controversial McCain cover by Jill Greenberg for Atlantic, etc.. It's very common. Nike, Gatorade, and about half the pop/hip-hop/rock bands out there have used this kind of finishing on photos. Guys are making huge dough shooting this style. Do you have to like it? No. But, it's certainly NOT "photoshopped up the ass" compared to a lot of the stuff in fashion magazines. And having just shot Alan during Fashion Week, his skin is very clean anyway. And what imperfections there are can still be seen in the close-up head shot. There's actually less skin retouching than most photographers would have done.

Anonymous said...

yes models are not perfect no one is perfect, so why try to photoshop them to make them perfect. Young teenagers to adults look at these photographs, ads, etc everyday. Billboards,Commercials,and magazines telling them what is beautiful."FAWLESS SKIN","BEING THINNER" QUOTED- "Society has even taken it to a new level of perfection that even some of our own actors and actresses don't want to go out in the daylight due to the slight imperfections that add "character" to an already beautiful visage. "
Why do you think that is??? Well its a industry your helping to endorse, making some teens to go to far some eventually taking their life. Why not bring on clients to your board that embrace healthy everyday looking guys and girls. Is everyday people not worthy enough to be on the cover of a magazine? Are they in your words not CHIC enough?
I feel like there could be positive change in shaping where the fashion industry is going.
Buy a box of chunky cookies and give one to each of your employees and clients. Look deeper and hear me out is what your doing truly benefiting others is this truly ART?

Anonymous said...

I think Oscar Wilde covered this over 100 years ago:

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault."

"Beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation."

Anonymous said...

To the person who declares a "box of chunky cookies" "to each of your employees" and asks, "Look deeper...is what you're doing truly benefiting others and is this truly ART?":

Yes. Yes it is art, and yes it is benefiting others, deeply. Me. And I'm sure a countless list of others.

Do your eyes not ache and starve for something, anything beautiful? Mine do. Feverishly.

Why suddenly in our age has beauty been taken from revered, something to be inspired by; to something reserved for jealousies and self hatred??? I cannot understand it.

And truly, if you are so very and entirely starved for "everyday looking guys and girls" there are always American Apparel adverts and walking down the very streets where you live. Neither of those are going anywhere so feast your eyes away. Feel fortunate your tastes are sated with such ease.

And it is not an issue of "worthy", it is simply that "everyday" people are ubiquitous.

And, "chunky cookie", remember, our world is dominated by something quite extremely unfortunate - the ability to tabulate everything down to the dollars on the daily: those actors and actresses become "brands", and that brand being sold in the dark theatres is not the human being in the light of day plastered across the tabloid covers.

Urg! And now I am truly exhausted. Far too long a comment! My apologies. Double urg.

I thank dearly every artist who chooses share their work with the world. You are every hope.

I also thank dearly every model who chooses share their particular beauty with the world, for perhaps without you, there is the very good chance there would be no art.

Anonymous said...

I just want to say that, of course I love to see beautiful things, beautiful photos, art. But most of the time photos are photoshopped to the extent that i just don't know what's really anymore. And looking at most photo's from campaigns or editorials, I still can be so naive to actuallyw ant to belive that the picture I see, the final result is actually the real way this photo was captured, without any photoshop. You see, how am I supposed to know what is photoshopped and what not. To some it might seem completely obvious, but to others it isn't.
I like to take photos myself and frequently come across photos taken by people that look so great, that I'm like, I want to take a photo just like that with the lighting looking so great and the overall texture being amazing. But then I find out that there was some photosop involved and this picture wasn't originally like this. Because of the whole photoshop thing photos can be made to look flawless making me think that the person who took them is a genius. And still without the photoshop the photo is probably great, but much less than the photoshopped product we end up seeing. So for a wannabe photographer this is very disencourging. I'd rather take a picture that looks like it's photoshopped without having to photoshop it. But with so many photos being photoshopped I start to wonder if there are actually any at all. Does anyone ever capture a photo looking as great as when photoshopped, of is there no such thing?

I have nothing against photoshop but it would just be nice when you know that these photos you see are photoshopped, changed to an extent that they are very different from the orginal. I think this would help a lot for people to realize that what they see and look at arent't the real image the way it looked when it was taken.

I find it strange though that you say, that noone would like to see a picture of himself without having been photoshopped on a billboard of any kind. I would. If I think the picture of me looks good, then why not show it on a huge billboard. If it looks fine to me why photoshop it. I never photoshopped any pictures of myself and there are a lot of them of which I think i look really nice in them. And I would not mind seeing those on a billboard.

Anonymous said...

The first picture of Alan looks perfectly fine to me. If I would have been confronted with that picture I would have been perfectly okay. The second picture looks more artistic yes, but that's compared to the first one and it's a sad thing that the public doesnt get the chance to evaluate the first picture on its own grounds, without having seen the second one. If I only had seem the first picture I would have said it's great, it's beautiful, to me it could have been already art, but instead it had to be made a little bit more artistic, which is fine, cause it looks nice, but the original would have been great as well and I dont think anyone would have mind if the first picture would have been the final product, the picture we all would have seen. Without the second one we would not have known better and would not have even thought about the idea that the first picture could be even more perfect than it already is.
Really, I would like to see a fashion magazine once with only non-photoshopped pictures. I bet the public would not mind seeing these pictures and noone would go like, these pictures arent good, make them more perfect! People would not see the difference, because there wouldnt be a difference, there wouldnt be a photshopped version to compare them with. We would appreciate the originals, and I'm sure a lot of people would already say that the originals look like true works of art.
So, Im not against photoshop, but really, do we need it at all? To me the models look already beautiful without photoshop and as you say yourself not all photos are extremely photoshopped, so they show only little change. So when the changes are so little, then why change them at all? In my opinion it's way nicer. And I'd rather think of the original photo being the work of art rather than the transformed and brushed up version. If we use photoshop than why not go back to painting and just create the entire picture ourselves as it seems that reality isnt able to capture the perception of what it is we perceive as art.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU FOR THAT :]

BeautyCOnfessional said...

Dave what did you do the second photo. The contrast just seems higher and the shadows more defined. The difference is ratehr subtle

Hat did you do when you retouched the second photo