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I don't usually bother with these, and it might take me a few days before I reply to any posts in response to this, but I am occasionally a woman of my word.
1. Reply with your name and I will write something random about you.
2. I will then tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I will pick a flavor of ice cream I would feed you.
4. I will say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I will tell you my first or most vivid memory of you.
6. I will tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll then ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your LJ.
I found this link on Neil Gaiman's livejournal, and spent some time going through it. It's both . . . fascinating, disgusting, and repellant all at once. I found myself preferring the pictures before they were 'retouched,' to be perfectly honest. And I'm not just saying that. The retouched versions . . . they look like plastic, they just don't seem like people. All the tiny quirks that make the human body unique and interesting smoothed away, the colors made too bright and unnatural, the flaws that ought to be endearing subtracted in favor of some untouchable ideal . . .
Yes, this from the same mind that managed to conceive of Emrys. But even his perfection has personality to it, the fleeting trace of expression, a particular way of moving, a customary somewhat cynical cast that marks him as alive.
Also, all of the people in the photos are already beautiful by most people's standards. Some of them are rather too thin, but even so.
When it comes to these photos . . . I'd take the reality over the illusion any day.
Also telling is the fact that most of the touch-up work is on the women. When men appear (granted, only twice, but still), they have a lot less changed about them. And even then it's mostly changing the shadows, smoothing over an unartistic wrinkle. Their shape is not altered, not as the womens' shape is altered. There's no rounding out at the rear, no filling in the chest, no widening or lightening of the eyes.
I'll let you come to your own conclusions about it, but it certainly bears thinking about.
Interestingly, when my family went to get our portrait done for some sort of dumb church yearbook thing (there are things that I do for the sole reason of making my father happy. This was one of them), we were offered by the photographer the opportunity to have the photo altered, the small blemishes smoothed over with a forgiving paintbrush tool. I'm happy to say that we refused, but I wonder how many other people did. And why they felt it necessary to have a book lie about them, when memory contradicts . . . ah, but memory is as easily edited as a photo, when you get right down to it. And the edited photo will serve to edit the memory, until they become the same thing.
1. Reply with your name and I will write something random about you.
2. I will then tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I will pick a flavor of ice cream I would feed you.
4. I will say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I will tell you my first or most vivid memory of you.
6. I will tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll then ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your LJ.
I found this link on Neil Gaiman's livejournal, and spent some time going through it. It's both . . . fascinating, disgusting, and repellant all at once. I found myself preferring the pictures before they were 'retouched,' to be perfectly honest. And I'm not just saying that. The retouched versions . . . they look like plastic, they just don't seem like people. All the tiny quirks that make the human body unique and interesting smoothed away, the colors made too bright and unnatural, the flaws that ought to be endearing subtracted in favor of some untouchable ideal . . .
Yes, this from the same mind that managed to conceive of Emrys. But even his perfection has personality to it, the fleeting trace of expression, a particular way of moving, a customary somewhat cynical cast that marks him as alive.
Also, all of the people in the photos are already beautiful by most people's standards. Some of them are rather too thin, but even so.
When it comes to these photos . . . I'd take the reality over the illusion any day.
Also telling is the fact that most of the touch-up work is on the women. When men appear (granted, only twice, but still), they have a lot less changed about them. And even then it's mostly changing the shadows, smoothing over an unartistic wrinkle. Their shape is not altered, not as the womens' shape is altered. There's no rounding out at the rear, no filling in the chest, no widening or lightening of the eyes.
I'll let you come to your own conclusions about it, but it certainly bears thinking about.
Interestingly, when my family went to get our portrait done for some sort of dumb church yearbook thing (there are things that I do for the sole reason of making my father happy. This was one of them), we were offered by the photographer the opportunity to have the photo altered, the small blemishes smoothed over with a forgiving paintbrush tool. I'm happy to say that we refused, but I wonder how many other people did. And why they felt it necessary to have a book lie about them, when memory contradicts . . . ah, but memory is as easily edited as a photo, when you get right down to it. And the edited photo will serve to edit the memory, until they become the same thing.
