While not the update I had planned, there’s something that’s bugging the hell out of me and I need to vent. So…buckle up. I spend a few minutes every day searching for new photo material to then process into spicy manips. Now the cynical among you will call that looking at porn, but its not…okay? Its not the same…remotely.
Anyway, here’s my point: while looking at…potential manip material I came across a set of pics that seemed to have possibilities. So I saved them, dropped them into a folder, let them sit a few days, and since I have a little free time this evening, decided to have a closer look to see what I might make of them.
It was at this point that my eyes began to bleed.
Apparently the skin you were born in isn’t good enough any more; you need professional help. ‘That’s why the almighty lord created Clinique’ I hear you interject…well you’re wrong so stop interrupting me. Evidently, you need help from a professional photoshop warlord to solve that whole ‘your skin has pores’ problem.
I understand the pressure for women to be beautiful, I understand the desire of websites and publications to market a glorified and idealized portrayal of female beauty. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. What I don’t understand is when the line was crossed where it became desirable to destroy color and pixel information to the degree that a photograph looks like a paint-by-numbers panel executed by a thumbless gorilla during an earthquake.
Maybe I’m overstating it, and its certainly not the poor gorilla’s fault she has no thumbs; they were probably ripped off by beauty nazis who think opposable digits are out of style or something. What really bothers me is the complete lack of skill or originality that goes into shoddy work like this. The ‘Maxim look’ we’ve all been assaulted with over the last few years isn’t my cup of tea but I appreciate the skill and technique involved in getting something that looks “natural.”
This pile of defecates looks like someone who knows nothing about photography paid someone who knows nothing about photoshop to ‘make it look better’. The second stooge in this two-man play of misery then sat down and started working their way through the filters menu in photoshop till they hit the Smart Blur effect then stood with fists pumping in the air over their blunt-skull shouting, “why work when photoshop does the work for me?”
Deep breath. Blue air goes in. Red air goes out.
Beauty obsessed culture?: I can deal with it. Skin polished to plastic perfection? I have stress toys for these type of things. Mistaking Photoshop for the Easy Button? I have two stress toys; one for each hand itching to close around your throat. However, piling all three of these offenses on top of me at once forms a trifecta of pain that will surely drive me to homicide…your homicide. Think about your family, think about your future, think about all those gorillas you need to ‘help’ with your “Eight Digit Makeover” reality-tv show.
Francis Bacon once said that “There is no beauty that hath not some strangeness in its proportion.” And I’d like to think he and I share some common ground on this topic. Every woman I have ever loved has had some quality that she hated about herself but that I found to be absolutely delightful. The things that make us different make us unique.
And unique…unique is truly beautiful.