September 4, 2005

| Objectivity Gives Way to Outrage >>

This link to the Web site of a professional photo retoucher has been floating around for a few days now, but I hadn’t clicked on it. When I did … wow.

It’s mostly images of models and celebrities, including many shots of Alicia Keys and Halle Berry. I was actually surprised at how good most of these models looked in the original photograph. I was expecting Attack of the Pores; instead I got Return of the MAC.

What’s shocking is exactly what the photo artist has removed or “enhanced” in image after image. He relentlessly edits out things like elbows, wrists, muscles, skin, hair, anything that disrupts the illusion of a perfectly curved body. And it’s only by looking at the before and after photos that it would dawn on you, “Wait, this model apparently has no knuckles.” It’s literally dehumanizing, and not even in a post-post-feminist kind of way.