You Too Can Be a Cover Girl August 11, 2006 Lauren Yet again, the power of the airbrush. via Chaos Theory
You know, I *like* the first picture. That it’s possible to take such a baby-face and turn her into the 2nd picture skeeves me out.
Seriously, Kaethe. That was along the lines of one of my first thoughts, which then led to the public fascination to seeing celebrity moms bare all in a photo shoot six weeks after the birth of baby. I distinctly remember one with Cindy Mole-Whatsherface that was advertised as “Cindy! In a Bikini! Wasn’t she just pregnant?” sometime in the late 90s. That was my first reference. Then Sarah Jessica Parker and a hundred other folks who are desperate to prove their bodies weren’t “ruined” by childbirth. In any case, I do like seeing the before shots as they make the after shots that much more perverse.
God! And people wonder why women complain about the impossible standards the media pushes on us. Somebody needs to draw a line in the sand on this one. P.S. Is it just me, or does she look frighteningly like a lifeless fembot in the “after” photograph?
Next you’re going to tell me that Jessica Simpson is a 47-year-old man named Bernie. I love this trend of showing the before and after! I just blogged about this the other day. I love the access we have now. Ima show this stuff to my daughter, man.
I feel like just combing her hair might have made a bit of difference in the first photo. It’s like they were TRYING to make her look bad.
What about Heidi Klum? She’s the one that, imo, takes the cake. She modeled UNDERWEAR on a RUNWAY three weeks after she had her baby. THREE WEEKS. It’s just…no. No, if you can’t cut yourself a little slack for a few weeks post partum, *damn*.
Same photo shoot, just different shots, and it does show the power of retouching but a slightly misleading.
For more OMGWTFBBQ reactions to the power of photoediting… http://www.fluideffect.com/ Click ‘portfolio,’ then ‘before/after.’ As someone who dabbles in photoshop, I know the basic level of the process to make a photo into a ‘glamour’ photo… whiting the eye-whites, darkening the curves of the face, clavicle, shoulders etc (makes everything look ‘thinner’), median/gaussian blur effects to make pores disappear, layers of colour variations to make the skintone even, clone tools to make stray hairs go away (no-one’s hair is ever that nicely in place… either they’re wearing a wig or there was definite cloning involved)… the list goes on and on. And that’s just doing facial close-ups!! Fluideffect makes entire skinfolds disappear!
I read an article where actress Kate Beckinsale said she sees magazine covers/pics and thinks “oh why can’t I look ast good as I did when I was younger?” And then she reminds herself she never DID look that good – it was all the photo touchups. Even the subjects get confused as to how they really looked.