Retouching is Destroying Women

And giving men an unrealistic view of them too. Been meaning to post this for awhile and thought I should do so before I forgot again.

So many times when I did retouching I was asked to fix little imperfections on people who didn't need it. Beauty is the state of BEING HAPPY WITH WHO YOU ARE not having your image artificially altered by some computer geek sitting in the dark (retouchers, you know who you are). You know how Hollywood is. Thinner thinner thinner... blah. Sure, heavy isn't attractive but heavy is also unhealthy. Unhealthy is what should be unattractive! There is nothing wrong with a beautiful woman who is at a healthy size. And by healthy I mean in-health and not as a nice word for fat. Fat is unhealthy. Focus on health! And more often that not it's the celebrity or athlete that asks for the retouching. Their egos must be sated. Their images must be solidified. Napoleons. All of them.

Then there's advertising. Tighter, smaller, thinner, more glowie! It's bullshit. The average person knows this logically but when did that ever matter? The average teen girl gets sucked into the mindset that people actually look the way their promotional photos do. I randomly came across some lame TV show called Makeover America or something rather. They were going over the ten top ways celebrities get in shape. Do you know what was their "secret weapon"? Retouching! I love doing the work. I love color correcting. I love making something more visually appealing. But retouching has gotten out of hand when it comes to portraying people.

Let's take Faith Hill as an example. She is stunning as is! Sure, she's not a young chick anymore but whoopty effin do. There are some wrinkles and age has begun to show but consider it a patina on a beautiful piece of art not something to be shunned. We need to change our mindsets when it comes to beauty. Paris Hilton-types can bite me. Anyway, my girlfriend showed me this. It made me sick. Click on the image to be sent to a "distort by the numbers" guide to how they altered the photo.

Here's an example I've known about for a few years. It's a campaign about what I'm writing. I hope you have Flash installed because it's a nice little presentation. Click on the image to view.

Life is too short not to be happy with who we are. Be healthy. Be happy. There's more to life than a size zero.

End Rant.