Fashion Photography

Fashion

Evolution

In the video, the model's lips and eyebrows were darkened, her eyes were lined with mascara and eyeliner, and her skin was made smoother with the use of makeup and acne and other marks were concealed, all before the editing began. When they started editing her image, her eyes and lips were enlarged and her face was shifted upwards so that she had a longer neck. Her face wasn't changed so much that she looked almost too unreal, but it was changed enough to look too perfect. 

Body Evolution - Model Before and After

In the video, her face was changed (her features were sharpened and her eyes were enlarged), her shoulders were shaped to be "feminine" (moved downwards to appear less broader, smaller), her arms , bust, waist, thighs, and calves were edited to be thinner. The model's legs, arms, and neck were lengthened, and her complexion was made to appear lighter and smoother. Basically, she was made into a Barbie doll, which is kind of creepy. 

Crazy Photoshop Skills

In the video, the model's butt, calves, arms, and shoulders were shaped to be smaller and more shapely, and her bust was shaped and made larger. Her butt and legs were made smaller and thinner, which looks kind of weird overall, and her rolls were eliminated which also made no sense. They continued to make her body as thin and small as possible that at one point, her head looked way too big for her body until they made that smaller too. Her cellulite was eliminated so that her butt, thighs, and legs were smoothed out. They lengthened her hair and made it looked a little darker, though that's the fakest hair I've ever seen. They smoothed out her curves, again, getting rid of lumps and rolls, and finally, they lightened her skin complexion. Despite being a plus-size model before, she was made smaller and thinner, which came out looking really freaky when you think about what she looked like in the original image.


Q&A

1. Photoshop editing models is definitely not ethically acceptable. Using photoshop editing on models is to fit society's distorted perception of beauty, despite how wrong and disturbing it is. It's fine to smooth out the skin and sharpen the facial features, but the line is crossed when the body is changed to become thinner and curvier. Editing a model's body, male or female, to fit today's beauty standards, only hurts the people viewing the photo who also pick up on that distorted perception of beauty.

2. It's always ethically wrong to distort and edit any body type, but I think the worst would be making a plus-size model who's a size 18 look like a size 1. There's a HUGE difference, and you couldn't tell that they're the same person if not for the face. 

3. Changes to the face are acceptable, considering that makeup has been around since the Ancient Egyptians to enhance and sharpen facial features, and most of the time, the face is not edited so much anyway after makeup is applied. Anything below the face becomes less and less acceptable.  

4. Fashion photography has a lot more editing involved than photojournalism, and while photojournalism aims to communicate a theme, mood, or story to the viewer, fashion photography solely focuses on being appealing to the eye. 

5. Photojournalism photography hits closer to home - that is, it's more realistic. Photojournalism photography is edited usually to brighten the image, make it appear more drastic, and sometimes to cover up parts of the image that may be deemed unethical. Fashion photography is far from reality, and usually the models are completely distorted or edited to fit the beauty standards in magazines and modeling. This difference makes photojournalism more ethical than fashion photography because photojournalism is not very far from the truth, whereas fashion photography is.

6. Besides having to fill in an hour and 20 minute class, these videos show us how distorted and twisted today's beauty standards are and how far they are from reality. Today, a lot of teenagers are hurt by these standards and try to fit to them, sometimes going as far to purposely starve themselves to become skinnier. 

7. The editing and photoshop in female model's is given more attention to in society and social media than the editing and photoshop in male model's, which is pretty weird. People would be enraged if a female model were changed completely from her original image, but probably wouldn't care so much if it were a guy instead. Maybe because society also makes us think that women should be attended to and protected and told that they're beautiful no matter what, but men have to take it and deal with their own body issues. Both genders have body issues and should both be given attention.