yeah, we want to see perfect bodies

[Buckster]

My only input, if you don't have any positive to add why bash someones thread?

Go make your own and complain all you want.

As Dan would say, have a nice day

Get back to me after you've seen the clone and resultant direction of this thread a hundred times. Meanwhile, I'll post my opinions about threads as I please, and you can gfys.

interesting way for you to contribute to the theme of this thread. Hypocritical much?

I would love to hear how you have contributed! My first comment was on topic, yours wasn't.

Have a good day,

I've contributed my thoughts on this in previous versions of this thread. Feel free to go find and read them, if you're truly so interested.

 

[pixmedic]

Come on guys...I'm on shift today. Don't make me work any more than I already have to.


I do as much retouching as the client wants, and as little as I have to.

 

[bentcountershaft]

I only have so much righteous indignation to spread around so I'm gonna wait for a "What defines a Pro" thread for that.

 

[sashbar]

When people start talking about how big is beautiful, I always remenber that love story about Mick Jagger and Marianna Faithful. The were very close because Jagger could talk to her about spiritual and philosophical things, and she was very witty and clever. So they talked a lot about philosophy and literature and all those exitingly intellectual things, and were deeply in love, but then she gained some weight and they split.

 

[bribrius]

it goes beyond that. Pretty things make for better photos, usually. Here is a story for you. I photographed a child and his cousin a couple years ago as a favor, both boys. Adhoc outdoor portraits. During the shoot and after i was deeply troubled, as one of the boys was born just flat out ugly. I hate to say that about a child. But it was true. I don't mean just average, below average. I mean he was just plain ugly. I didn't say anything to the parents. But during and after i was really depressed over the entire thing. Looking through the photos there was just nothing i could do to save them. Other kid, great photos. This kid , just nothing i could do. The parents liked the photos of course. But i really wasn't happy with any of the shoot or the photos.

So last year, i was asked again to shoot this kid. Hard situation as they are friends of friends (i somewhat know them). I declined, they wanted to know why. Wife asked me why. I really just didn't dare give them the answer i was really thinking. How do you tell someone their kid is just too ugly? Truth is i just couldn't handle looking through the photos of the kid again and being upset about them knowing there was nothing i could do. I like kid photos to be cute, at least reasonably not horrid. I couldn't do anything with this kid. He just looks how he looks. He wasn't granted with great looks. I didn't want to be put in that position again.

 

[sashbar]

As a photographer I am attracted to ugliness or any other unusual characteristic much more than a standart beauty. Sometimes I sit on the London tube and there are six or seven people in front of me, and I think, who would I fancy as a portrait model? Most of the time it is some man in his 60-s and almost never it is a young and beautiful girl.
One can admire a young and beatiful woman as a man, but as a photogrher I find young beauty boring and dull. Give me some traces of life on your face! Someone said that by the end of his/her life a person deserves a face that he/she is wearing. I like that., that is a good start for a portrait. Often when I look at young and beautiful, I just realise they have not yet lived. No traces whatsover, only makeup.
When I shoot street and point my camera in a direction of a hip, beautiful girl, I often see that look and am really tempted to say, "hey sweety, I do not give a *** about your charms, I am interested in that weirdo next to you, or that red spot and that shadow and maybe you will fit there as well, if you are lucky". I do not say it, of course. I am mostly sober.
I just realised it was completely off topic.

Or probably I wrote it to say that shooting an ugly kid would be a great challenge that I would prefer to taking shots of another pretty face.

But seriously, that was a correct decision to decline that request, bribrius, I think this kid needs a good pro who could do a proper portrait.

There is an anecdote about a man who visited an inter-galactic whorehouse having run of all his inter-galactic cash and being unable to afford a human or even a marsian. So he was given some living ball. It was completely round and smooth and the man turned it in his hands and said "Could you please fart to give me some coordinates?"
That is how I fell as a photographer when I look at the standart young beauty. No traces...

 

[Derrel]

As I see it, the advertising agency for Curvy Kate pulled a very common stunt, which is co-opting a highly talked about campaign from a bigger, higher-profile agency and a bigger, much,much higher-profile, world-wide company. Curvy Kate specializes in selling underwear,lingerie,and swimwear to heavier, bustier, hippier women with D through K-sized busts. In other words, the British Page 3 girl body type....the woman who weighs in at 165 to 200 pounds, and has a heavy bosom and big hips and ample thighs.

There is absolutely not one, single damned noble or inspirational thing about Curvy Kate's ad campaign co-opting the Victoria's Secret campaign...it is in fact simple self-interest for Curvy Kate; they want to sell merchandise to their niche market. Their website mentions right up front what market segment they target. CK targets the obese to morbidly obese woman, whose numbers are significantly HIGHER than the number of VS target customers. WHy that blog page "celebrates" CK's "nobility" seems a case of ignorance of advertising and corporate marketing. CK has done **nothing** noble, but merely shows that ,"Hey...if you're overweight, we have underwear,and lingerie, and swimwear for YOU!" Pure corporate self-interest, and smart advertising designed to extract money from customers. Zero noble intent. None. nada.

I looked at their ads, and one of their product line videos on their main site: Curvy Kate Lingerie UK - Beautiful D-K Bras for a Fuller Bust

What's their angle? Full makeup, super-simple hair that's been styled professionally but is supposed to appear as if it were NOT styled, nice-looking but not super-beautiful models, British teeth standards (many of these girls would not make the grade for USA on the teeth perfection standards for models or actresses), and an average body weight of 185 pounds or so. THe "secret" I see is in the cut and fit of their lingerie and swimwear; the garments are fitted to perfection, and do not dig-in on the bra straps or bikini or underwear waistbands. No need for retouching in their videos--the clothes FIT their models PERFECTLY. What makes a person look "fat" are rolls of skin that over-spill waistbands and bra/swimwear straps...as in what is called "back-fat" when a woman's skin is squeezed in by a too-small, too-tight brassiere, and her blouse shows an H-pattern of...back-fat, as it is called.

There's not much need to retouch if a person's clothing fits them and is attractive and stylish.

 

[rexbobcat]

I'm all about body positivity and realistic body standards, but...It's Victoria's Secret...Since the 80's they've been using the svelte models to sell their sexy lingerie. While the first tag line was in poor judgment, I still don't understand what people want from these companies. VC has a brand identity. When people think of VC, they think of the angels and skinny, petite models. That's what sells their lingerie (apparently.)

Also; one of the biggest complaints I've heard from bigger women is that it's hard to find attractive bras/lingerie, so why did Curvy Kate use the most drab, beige, granny bras. Looking at their website, they have some really pretty stuff, but if I hadn't gone to the website, I would think "Man, Victoria's Secret gets all this colorful stuff and even companies catering to curvy women can't make good-looking bras."

I'm just getting sick of hearing about companies and Photoshop blah blah. These companies do not care about us in the same way that we can care about each other. Not matter how righteous they may appear to be, they're still about the bottom dollar. They have a direct and undeniable conflict of interest.

Instead of taking the lazy route of bitching out companies until they comply to our demands, maybe we should work on strengthening the bonds between us? If young men and women were built up by those around them, would they care as much about what some cold, corporate entity thinks?

Because honestly, in my experience, having a "friend" call me a "pussy" because of my slight build (true story) hurts a lot worse than seeing a ripped Hugh Jackman on the cover of some men's magazine.

I've also heard some downright vicious comments from women about other women.

Changing the attitudes of those everyday people who directly affect us is much more sustainable and will have a more positive impact than going against these companies who only care about what's in our wallets.

Just my .02

 

[gsgary]

I thought this thread was going to be about Camera Bodies !!
Oh well

I was hoping for the same thing, but no such luck. Back to the same fight about beauty and editing and retouching and how far will YOU go, and the ethics of it all, and all associated BS to go with it that's been seen here about a hundred times already.

My only question at this point is how many pages this will go before it gets locked over flared tempers or fizzles out after meandering off in some odd direction about zebras or salmon recipes or some such nonsense. I'll guess 9.

I agree with you for a change

 

[rexbobcat]

I like Leonard Nimoy's work in terms of body confidence. He was genuine. He wasn't a paid spokesperson and truly cared about his portrayal of larger women as proud of who they are. And I respect that infinitely more than this.

 

[pgriz]

A lot of our purchasing is "aspirational", where we buy stuff to look like someone or something, to feel that we're part of an elite group, or to project an image we want others to have of us. Given that our economy depends on people buying stuff (whether we "need" it or not), there are huge industries that have built their fortunes on making us feel insecure and unsatisfied, in which the quickest fix is to buy something (either product or service). If we, as a population, became comfortable with ourselves and satisfied with who and what we are, many parts of the economy will go bust. So we can't have that. Therefore, the mind-games continue.

 

[Scrumbles]

It kinda bugs me that Curvy Kate couldn't spring for a better photographer...

 

[Derrel]

It kinda bugs me that Curvy Kate couldn't spring for a better photographer...

Their page of downloadable .PDF brochures is an interesting sales approach in this, the smartphone era. Download Curvy Kate Brochure
The photography approach is straight-up "catalog photography", with bright light, minimal propping, minimal 'fantasy location' stuff, just...plain, old-school shots of the merchandise on the models, with detail shots to show the garments. Very different from the Victoria's Secret approach, and probably 10 to 20 times cheaper to produce.

VIctoria's Secret produces a multi-million dollar annual fashion show and TV program with **the** hottest pop stars of the current year performing on-stage, and buys Super Bowl ads, and employs some of the very top fashion/lingerie/swimwear models, so the photography work they hire done is extremely high-end, and has a lot of that "fantasy" aura around it; the aspirational aspect that pgriz mentioned in post #26 is a big part of Victoria's Secret.

CK looks to me to appeal strongly to real, regular, everyday women, not those 24Hr Fitness types that weigh in at 118 pounds and have surgically augmented bustlines...

According to Wikipedia, Curvy Kate does NOT use professional models.Curvy Kate - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
"Curvy Kate do not use professional models. They instead run an annual modelling competition called Star in a Bra to look for real sized models with a D+ cup size with a one year modelling contract on offer to the winner. Starting in the UK, the competition has grown to Australia in 2011 and USA in 2012."

 

[DanOstergren]

As far as image making goes, I make my images based on my personal esthetic including the models that I scout, hence why a good 75% of what I photograph are bearded men. I like their beards to be groomed, their faces clean and their bodies fit. That's what I find attractive. If another photographer likes clean-shaven or chubby guys, more power to them, and I hope that they photograph them because photographing what you love and are attracted to will help you create better images in my opinion.

As far as retouching goes, I think that all starts with lighting your subject. Technically one could argue that putting people in certain lighting also creates an illusion of something unreal because the right lighting will do half the retouching and slimming for you, and for the most part people aren't in perfect lighting in every-day situations. I personally prefer to use my light in a way that does the hard retouching work for me. If people are to argue that retouching in photoshop is un-ethical, then I also believe that they should be arguing that putting people in "perfect lighting" is also unethical, as well as using certain focal length lenses, reflectors, strobes, and scrims.

 

[Forkie]

My Macbook has scratches on it, fingerprints all over the screen, crumbs under the keys and a melt-spot where a bit of cigarette ash dropped onto one of the keys. But, when I buy a new one, I want to see a picture of the perfect Macbook. If Apple had pictures of Macbooks that looked like mine all over their Apple Store, no-one would buy one, even though everyone knows that's what they end up looking like after a couple of months.

My car (before it died) had scratches on the bumper, scuffs all over the wheels, gunk all over the gearstick, and a small dent in the rear wing. If I want to buy another Toyota, I want to see a picture of a brand new, perfect car. If their billboard ads had a car that looked like mine did on them, no one would buy them.

Most people who buy a 4x4 will never drive it through a puddle, let alone across a raging river or over a mountain. But an ad for a 4x4 will always show the 4x4 doing those because that is it's optimum use.

My body is a little underweight. I have scars on my knee and one just under my eyebrow. My biceps are smaller than the average guy my age's forearms and my willy (while in perfect working order and has received no complaints, I might add), is distinctly average-sized. But when I want to buy a new pair of budgie-smugglers, I want to see what they look like on David Beckham, not DJ Qualls.

Advertisers want to advertise their products in optimum condition in use by the optimum user. The girls in the Victoria's Secret image with "normal" people posted earlier are, whilst very pretty, not the optimum users of the product and it does not show the product at it's optimum appearance. They are the average users showing the product at it's average appearance.

I can wear Calvin Kleins, just like hot-bod David but alas, I am the average user, not the optimum one.

It seems to me that people want to see what underwear or swimwear or any other clothing or makeup will look like on themselves in an advert. But of course, that is not possible. The only option for advertisers is to use the perfect version of a healthy, optimum human body.

And unless you are completely deluded, whereas the exact look of a perfect body is subjective, the perfect version of the human body, whether we like it or not, is not overweight. Is it not underweight with an average sized willy, either. It does not have a scar under it's eyebrow, it doesn't have a runny nose, or acne, or a cough, or a gambling habit, or a bank account in the red, or a scratched Macbook.

The perfect human body is one that can run upstairs without getting out of breathe, keep their bank-balance above £0.00, wear a bikini that doesn't drop off or pop off, and carry a sleeping girlfriend to bed with little effort and not smacking her head on a door frame.