Photo Amnesia
I know I know. You think this is about my obsession with photoshop, but hear me out.
Wired Magazine has this section called "Mr. Know-it-all", in which Brendan Koerner answers (absurd) questions of readers to "help them navigate life in the 21st century"
One of the questions in a recent issue was:
"Is it OK to Photoshop my wedding pictures before I post them on Flickr? I just want to do something about my crow's feet."
Here's Mr. Know-it-all's response:
As long as you don't go overboard with the improvements, tweaking your soon-to-be-Flickr'd pics is perfectly copacetic.
Professional wedding photographers, after all, regularly blot out blemishes. "I touch up photos so people look as good in their photographs as they did in real life," says Scott Kelby, editor of Photoshop User magazine, who has shot dozens of weddings. And while such modifications might be verboten in the ethics-constrained world of photojournalism, your nuptials aren't exactly front-page news—no matter what your mother says.
I'm reminded of my arguments with my photographer in India who insisted on touching up my face in passport photos despite much protest. He whined about my lack of gratitude, but chose to be the bigger person anyway and give me a free makeover whether I was appreciative of it or not. Recently, a cousin showed me his family photo, in which he was made to look fairer, his birthmarks removed, lips painted a delicious plum. Everyone else in the picture too was given a makeover, including his 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son, but his face went through the most dismembering.
Indian matrimonial websites are full of photoshopped pictures of "dashing" men and women, most of whom willingly get their faces photoshopped. The photos are usually taken in a studio, where a woman is seated by a table with a beautiful flower vase full of red roses or orange gerberas, a glowing light illuminating the top of her head, and a soft secondary light eliminating any shadow on her face created by the key. She is made to rest her hand on her chin and smile coyly at the camera. Once the picture is taken, the photographer pimps her picture up by adding some more makeup to her face, removing any natural lines, and changing her facial expression to an anatomically incorrect but flawless barbie-dollish one. The girl is usually ecstatic with joy on seeing her beautified face. Men too willingly go through the same ordeal. They sit by the same table, with the same red roses and a kittenish smile that masks all signs of masculinity, their neatly trimmed mustache only making them look more effeminate (somehow).
People who like getting their face photoshopped are basically "amnesia shoppers". They hope that their friends and family will see their dolled-up picture and forget what they look like in real life and that prospective suitors will only remember the face in the photograph even after they present themselves in person later.
Likewise, photographers who photoshop their subjects' faces without their consent secretly wish for amnesia-accepting subjects. They hope that on seeing a dolled-up version of themselves, their subjects will forget what they look like in real life.
I haven't gone through this matrimonial drill myself, but I am guilty of dragging pictures of friends and family into photoshop and monkeying around with their faces. I don't do it with the intention of "bettering" a face or making it look funny even. I do it out of habit, for the same reason that I mindlessly eat bags of chips when I am watching tv, whether I am hungry or not. Like Scott Kelby, I touch up photos to make the ambiance and subjects look close to what they were like in real life. I like to believe that this type of photoshopping is fairly harmless.
But, amnesia shoppers and amnesia photographers are a totally different class. That people are not willing to look like themselves or that photographers feel the need to photoshop people's faces without their consent is amusing and pitiful at the same time. I know I should let people decide for themselves if they should consider this as an issue of self-importance or the lack of self-worth or just plain ok. But, I can't seem to be indifferent.
