Photoshopping real women into cover models

Gigi

I really enjoyed the video on Link Love about photoshopping real women to be cover models. Ironkurtin (thank you for finding this video!) asked how we would feel if that were us. I thought I'd start a thread about it.

I too have often felt like it would be so nice to look like a model! But after seeing this video, I think that if someone did this to me, I would feel the same way as those women, like I was no longer a person to be interacted with and loved but someone to be simply viewed as "pretty" and kind of hung up on a wall, so to speak. I think that if I saw a photoshopped cover model version of myself, I would see body parts and pretty skin and beautiful hair but not a human being, an integrated whole, with character.

How about you?

ETA: Angie added a link with the embedded video below.

10 years ago

General

12 replies

Latest reply was from Marillen

Runcarla

Veteran

The initial makeover/styling part (hair, make-up, lighting, coaching on how to pose) would be fun, and maybe even insightful and I would be okay with that part. It would be fun to have a glam shot for posterity! On the other hand, I don't think I would be too keen on the photoshopping part. I've worked hard for the body I've got, and frankly wouldn't want to mess with it IRL (or pretend) any more than a good bra, and clothes chosen to suit my body type and style.

Models and celebrities must find it really demoralizing trying to live up to a photoshopped version of themselves. You would have to have a good head on your shoulders to be able to leave the studio and computer image behind and compartmentalize it as 'just a job'.

FWIW I'm astounded by the beauty of the YLF members. Considering the selfie with camera, phone, or iPad, and the poor lighting, awkward angles, amateur styling and personal budgets--we look good!

10 years ago

ironkurtin

Veteran

A face and body has to change so much to fit to a "beauty" norm now that I would be unrecognizable. I take pictures with the hope of looking good, not with the hope of looking like someone else.

10 years ago

Thistle

Veteran

It really brought home how models might not even look like themselves.

10 years ago

alee

Active Member

I want to look like my best self, but I want to look like myself. It also really brings home the fact that to societies standards no one, not even models are up to standards, and anyone can be model beautiful.

For several years I was ashamed of my weight, of my looks and I avoided taking pictures until I realized I had erased those years of myself from all the trips and times with my family. So now I try to look my best, and jump in the picture when I can. If we were all photo shopped so much that we don't even look like ourselves anymore it would be the same thing. We would be erasing ourselves.

10 years ago

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

psssst. Here is the link with the embedded video:

http://youlookfab.com/2014/02/.....t-is-cool/

It was a very interesting video. It reminds me of artists who back in the day - hundreds of years ago - painted idealized versions of their subjects. These were hung on the walls as replicas of the real people. Fascinating.

To answer IK, I'm not sure how I'd feel actually. I'd probably take the whole thing with a pinch of salt.

When I see a photo that I think is unflattering from our photoshoot but Greg loves the photo - Greg tells me to get over it and stop being vain. I have to re-centre myself and get on with it. And then I say. Yup. It is what it is. I'm grateful for this reality check. So I'm sticking with my sweetie Greg as my photographer and photo processor. He is very sensitive and kind with his photo selection - we do choose photos that we both think are the most flattering - and they are real. With plenty of imperfections. And that's a good reminder. I'm 43, and this is what I look like.

I have to add that it is REALLY hard being a photographic model. My hat off to all photo models who do this job with ease.

10 years ago

ATLynn

Veteran

Being completely honest, I think I would be horrified to see how much work it takes for my image to meet beauty standards. I know they do it to supermodels, too, but watching myself get changed from "me" to "socially acceptably pretty" would be too much to bear.

10 years ago

carter

Veteran

I don't know. I'm clearly in the minority so far, but I think it would be great fun to see myself photoshopped. I don't get any inkling that it would bother me or make me feel bad or lost in any way. Maybe I'd feel differntly at the end, but I'd be the first one to raise my hand to have it done.

10 years ago

(website)

Veteran

Carter, I'll join you in finding it a fun thing to try out, knowing full well it's never gonna happen day to day IRL. I imagine this is kind of what people go through if they head to a plastic surgeon's and look into a nose job or boob job or whatever. An alternate version of ones self. I do appreciate what I have, flaws and all, but wouldn't mind seeing the 'gussied up' version! And take it for what it's worth. Heck, this is what glamour shots (am I aging myself now?) were all about, right??

10 years ago

mrseccentric

(website)

Veteran

ATLynn, you remarks made me sad that you feel this way: "Being completely honest, I think I would be horrified to see how much work it takes for my image to meet beauty standards."

It's not true. You're a human being and you are beautiful. If some highly paid nitwit thinks you're not up to their 'standard', it's a problem of their shallowness and their choice to buy into our society's stupid ideas. It's nothing whatsoever to do with your beauty as a human being. When i was twenty i got in a car accident and walked around with 150 stitches in my face - i'd much rather be me, then, than the idiot at the bank who said,"You look so awful, i feel like throwing up when i look at you." Yep. someone got an exciting visit from an irate mom later that day! And what you say to a person you just met is just as surface as your face.

"I know they do it to supermodels, too..." Do you really? I've spent a certain amount of time around models (art, fashion, hair, etc.), strippers, drag queens, beauty queens, prostitutes - all professions where you need to keep up a certain 'socially acceptable beauty standard'. It takes a helluva lot of work to look the way your job demands, and NOBODY gets out of it. Because the idea is not for people to look like themselves, it's for them to look like some idea that nobody looks like. Everybody gets foundation, no matter how gorgeous the complexion, Everybody 'needs' false eyelashes for that little oomph no matter how naturally luscious theirs might be.....no belly or thighs are tight and smooth enough to spanx and photoshop.

It is horrifying, that even the most fresh faced beautiful innocence is plastered over and called 'improved'. And if it truly took that type of effort to make women beautiful, i doubt we'd have all these billions of people on the planet

Anyways, i hope that you look at the industry part of this and maybe see that it's not some type of natural absolute standard of 'real objective beauty'. A lot of it, IMHO, is just set up to make people feel bad so they'll buy stuff.

thankfully here on the blogs it's a different - dare i say a bit more real - world. One way or the other ATLynn i hope you have a great evening, steph

10 years ago

lyn*

(website)

Veteran

My parents and I went to get studio shots done and I love the hardly processed snapshots.

A year later we got the "photoshopped" versions and we can barely recognize each other! Definitely not good for family snapshots!

10 years ago

Active Member

Awww! my comment got gobbled up due to bad wifi

Anyways, here I go again:

I wouldn't mind being photo-shopped. I'm quite unphotogenic since my teens when I became all conscious of my looks. I hate taking pictures and the ones that I do take are of me looking either constipated or like I want to run away.

On certain rare occasions when I have had good pictures taken, it has boosted my confidence and as a result over the next few days I have had some good pictures. Problem is, it hasn't happened enough times for me to be able to understand what makes things tick for me photogenically.

Maybe a couple of pictures of me as a Cover Model will help permanently make me *mentally* photogenically.

10 years ago

Marillen

Active Member

Sure, sounds fun! I don't get pictures taken much and I've never done anything like a glamor shot. My response would be the same as Gigi, but I would laugh at my smooth, "pretty" unperson! In fact I'd make a game out of it, guessing what they'd change.

I dunno, worrying about how much I don't look like pictures of (obviously airbrushed) models is something I did when 15, and I later realized that those girls probably look a lot different in "real life", so now I don't have any emotional reaction to that stuff. Those pictures are most likely selling a product and have nothing to do with me. : \

10 years ago

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