Friday, August 24, 2007

Lookin' good, by Susie

Go to this website:

http://www.iwanexstudio.com/

Go ahead, it's safe, I promise. It's a top-flight photo retouching studio, and if you go to their portfolio page, you can click on celebrity photos, then roll over them and see what the photos looked like before they fixed them.

My first thought was: wow, I want them to work on me. The difference in some of them is amazing. And then it was like a kid's "which one is different?" game, trying to pick out exactly what they did to each picture.

But I have to say, it does make me a little uncomfortable. No wonder some young girls have a wierd idea of what female beauty is! I when you think that the BEFOREs were probably taken by talented photographers, after hours of work by gifted makeup artist and hairdressers and stylists . . . NOBODY can look like that. Nobody. Skin goes to flawless with the click of a mouse. Notice how they make a little roll around Beyonce's middle disappear, how they sharply define the waist of the already-thin Eva Longhoria.

I think it'd be awfully fun to have them do this to you once. But jeez, it's hard for normal people to live up to. Heck, people who are paid to be gorgeous aren't even close, apparently, if they need that much work done.

I'm not a person who thinks about how people look very often. (Anybody who sees me in my normal life knows that I don't worry about it much.) And I don't have daughters. But it does seem to me it'd be good for us all to see what the beautiful people really look like. (My husband was never so disappointed as when he sat by a very famous model - like, in Sports Illustrated - on a plane once. He didn't believe who she was until she showed him a picture.)

I'm betting we'd all be a lot less worried about our own flaws.

Susie

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Fascinating, Susie! It IS amazing what they can do with digital editing these days. I was astonished to see what they did to Eve Longoria, who has to be one of the cutest actresses around. They nipped her waist and added a bit more booty! Geese. And did you see how they cleaned up the Brit actor McFaydden? He looked like he'd been written hard and put away wet. Major hangover territory. And they made him look quite good!

Makes me think about my antique publicity photos. . . maybe I should have a new one done. . . and then get it edited!

Oh, yeah. . . and I get the point. Even the beautiful people aren't really that beautiful. It's an image being sold to us. . . and it's not real. It's sobering to think so many young people, especially girls, are being duped into thinking they're majorly inferior to these doctored images.

Unknown said...

Ha! That was supposed to read "ridden hard," not "written hard!"

Talk about flaws. . .

Christie Ridgway said...

Susie: Wow! That site is amazing. I noticed that it appeared that they put pounds =on= Cameron Diaz. And they carved Kelly Clarkson's curves like crazy. Wish I could do that in real life.

I was at the hairdresser's today (report: sweeping bangs to my bob and re-highlighted appropriately so it's a kinda cute surfer girl look, I like it). Guess what? The hair magazines in the salon have a lot of celeb red carpet photos that aren't retouched! I was noticing freckles, etc., and you have to think that's even with a lot of evening make-up. Looking at those opened my eyes too.

Debra Dixon said...

Susie! Amazing. And you're absolutely right. People can't live up to this. Teenage girls should know this.

Helen Brenna said...

Hahaha! Susie, this is amazing. Pounds off, pounds on. Suddenly boobs on Julia Stiles. Did you notice how Halle Berry and Penelope Cruz are so amazingly beautiful they barely needed touch ups?

Does make it scary for girls these days, and I do worry about that with my daughter. I'm going to definitely show her this site. Thanks!!