The camera never lies?

[Bearface]

Re: The camera never lies?

Hasn't it occurred to you that woman wear makeup doing just that, to make themselves to look better or younger than their age? I say this is a new found freedom and power (playing God) that we never had before, thanks to digital imaging and photo manipulation softwares .

We all lie to ourselves and others everyday (with good intentions of course), so why not in a photograph.

Danny

Manipulation has been a part of photography virtually from the beginning. Digital imaging is certainly another chapter, but the concept of altering reality in the context of photography preceeded it by a considerable amount of time.

[Ian]

Re: The camera never lies?

Hasn't it occurred to you that woman wear makeup doing just that, to make themselves to look better or younger than their age? I say this is a new found freedom and power (playing God) that we never had before, thanks to digital imaging and photo manipulation softwares .

We all lie to ourselves and others everyday (with good intentions of course), so why not in a photograph.

Danny

Danny, I think there is a difference between applying make-up, spending time on doing your hair well and wearing attractive clothes. Frankly there is a limit to what these options will ultimately deliver.

But if you are lengthening legs, slimming stomachs and thighs and ironing out wrinkles, it's more surgical. Make up enhances what you have while surgery changes what you are.

Ian

[Danny Chau]

Re: The camera never lies?

Danny, I think there is a difference between applying make-up, spending time on doing your hair well and wearing attractive clothes. Frankly there is a limit to what these options will ultimately deliver.

But if you are lengthening legs, slimming stomachs and thighs and ironing out wrinkles, it's more surgical. Make up enhances what you have while surgery changes what you are.

Ian

More to the point, men and women now do have beauty surgery to make them exactly what you've just said, that is the same, is it not.

Danny

[Ian]

Re: The camera never lies?

More to the point, men and women now do have beauty surgery to make them exactly what you've just said, that is the same, is it not.

Danny

Yes indeed, and the underline topic of the programme was that now routine digital manipulation of the human form in photographs, especially in commercial photography, is encouraging people to surgically alter themselves or do other things that would be regarded as harmful.

I'm not saying photographers are to blame - they are only doing what the clients ask for. I know that you and I would probably run a mile at the thought of cosmetic surgery (even in our older years ) but the debate is whether the ease at which this kind of photo manipulation can now be done is just adding to the age-old problem of some people trying to change themselves needlessly into stereotypical forms.

Ian

[tarzieboy]

Re: The camera never lies?

absolutely

[Chris]

Re: The camera never lies?

Hi All

Photographing people is all about achieving the image the photographer, or commisioning customer, wants to portray. The use of technique to do this may be as subtle as lighting or as unsubtle as a full rework in the virtual domain.

The porblem that I see is more the culture that has been engineered through media to require people to aspire to look, act, conform and PURCHASE a certain way. It was obvious years ago that if society continued on the path of the aspirational model to control and govern, these problems would come to the fore.

I feel sorry for all those people who actually look pretty good but feel the need to change. One could blame the media, but at the end of the day, it is their own fault for being essentially gullible and spineless. The big quastion in this context is "did the media create the mindset?" Those of us lucky enough to be able to see the machine from the outside know it is all a marketing excersise, but those that have never been able to see anything past what they are told are suffering as a result. Ignorance is not bliss.

Chris

PS, the Dove girls mmmmmm