What am I saying with my photography?
Using Facetune:
Facetune is an app I downloaded on my phone that acts as a way to photoshop any picture. I took a picture of Nichole, this is the original:
I found that flipping the image made my face look a little more symmetrical, I made nine changes to my face; I smoothed my skin, I liked the outcome of the smoothness but I was disappointed that it took away my freckles, I also enlarged my lips and eyes, thinned my face slightly, this was hard to do, I raised my eyebrows many times and went over all the changes to make my face look better in the eyes of the western culture.
This is the image after I used Facetune, I smoothed the skin but I used too much to smooth the nose, in my opinion it doesn't look quite right; I think there needs to be more shading around the nose, but I am please with the outcome of the skin. I made 10 changes to her face. This seems like a lot of changes to make o the face using an app on my phone; I changed the skin tone, the roughness of the skin, I detailed the eyes to make them shiny, whitened her teeth, enlarged the lips and I refined her nose many times but wasn't proud with the outcome.
This is the original photo I took of myself, I notice how unsymmetrical my face is but also how hard it is to use the app to correct this.
I found that flipping the image made my face look a little more symmetrical, I made nine changes to my face; I smoothed my skin, I liked the outcome of the smoothness but I was disappointed that it took away my freckles, I also enlarged my lips and eyes, thinned my face slightly, this was hard to do, I raised my eyebrows many times and went over all the changes to make my face look better in the eyes of the western culture.
I was pleased with the outcome, but a bit disappointed with my eyes, they looked unsymmetrical and I wanted my freckles to stay in the picture but have smoother looking skin.
I feel that some retouching on images for fashion and beauty is reasonable, but to basically lie to the public with the amount of photoshop that happens today in my opinion is wrong. It can change the character of a person, by changing their looks, what makes them different and what makes them them. With my app photoshopping I was disappointed that it took away my freckles, I think freckles are beautiful and although mine aren't prominent I want them there.
Achieving 'perfection' is impossible, westernised beauty ideals are much different to the ideals from other cultures, a smooth face, longer forehead, symmetry, eyes not too far apart, full lips, small nose and slender face is what 'perfect' means to some, and certainly to the fashion and beauty professionals. As a makeup artist it annoys me that it is considered okay to change the appearance of someone and make them look 10 years younger, everyone ages and has blemishes e.g moles, face marks, birth marks, this is what makes us different and beautiful. I certainly think it is wrong to photoshop makeup onto a model, that is the job of the makeup artist, and it offends me to see it happening in everyday magazines and adverts. It is the makeup artist's job to say when enough is enough. I also believe too much symmetry is odd, it makes a person look un-human, people like to see beautiful people i magazines and on television but too much can go the other way, this is called uncanny valley.
