To retouch or not to retouch, seems to be the question these days. I chose the latter, for my current exhibition of large-format portraits titled "Supermodels of the 70's and 80's" at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. The images, taken on my vintage Deardorff 8x10 view camera, were shot on color negative film, with a sharp, realistic, modern lens. At the same time, I lit the women with the warmest, oversized soft box in my studio. But, a single source soft box, with no under-fill, no bounce cards, no hair-lights, is hardly what you'd call flattering beauty light. Am I conflicted? No.
Beverly Johnson, Portrait by (c)Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Photographers have at their disposal an arsenal of devices that control a portrait's final outcome. Lighting, lens, depth of field, focus, they all play a role. I'd say it's in post-production where things get a little screwy. Photoshop is probably to blame. It's just so easy to erase a few years. What the hell, why not take off a decade of wrinkles and age spots. Click of the mouse. Any first year photo school student can do it.
Carol Alt, Portrait by (c)Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
With the "Supermodels" I kept the post-production to a minimum. We cleaned up the scans, removed dust and scratches, but 95% of reality can be seen in the Ilfochrome prints. After all, some of these women have electively turned back 'time.' In a sense, they arrived at the studio already 'photo-shopped'. And that's beyond my control. But how I shoot, my lighting, my choice of camera and lens, that's all my decision. Blame me if you think I should have retouched and retouched and retouched, but I think these women look beautiful just the way they are.
Karen Bjornson, Portrait by (c)Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
I'm not unsympathetic. There's a lot of pressure out there. We all want to be attractive and admired. What I object to is the excess, the shameless retouching, the body sculpting performed by so many magazines, and the dangerous message it sends.
A few years ago my wife and I gave a party in honor of a fashion designer friend. Karin and I were casually chatting in the hallway stairs with writer Fran Lebowitz. We were discussing facelifts and how people torture their bodies to look younger. Fran turned to us and said, "Yeah, I know what you mean, but YOU'RE not on the market".
Visit Timothy's website at Greenfield-Sanders.com.
They look like people.
Obviously, it's all of you that are the problem, not "age."
Me, I'm looking forward to the day I look like Yoda.
http://www.benjaminkanarekblog.com/2009/08/11/one-of-my-first-vogue-covers/
Benjamin Kanarek
http://www.benjaminkanarekblog.com
After a couple of decades of photographing beautiful people, I really appreciate a face, a person, even hands with character. The things that show what experiences have done to shape that person inside and out.
I think these Greenfield-Sanders images are more beautiful BECAUSE they're not retouched. The women are stunning just as they are.
It seams to flatten the face on the lighted side and show the character on the shade side.
Cool method.
I spent the seventies and eighties doing work for magazines and even back then, the image that appeared in the magazine looked nothing like the original camera image.
Today they use Photoshop, but retouching has been around since the early days of photography.
about the many choice we have . It almost overkill and in the hands of
amateurs it can be brutal. There are all kinds of wonderful solutions that
transport people into looking as they do not . Age must be respected
and a little help will not hurt if its light . Lets Face it all people posses thie
own special beauty and why tamper with that if you do not have a mission
from an art Director.
Jim Allen
www.jimallenphoto.com
Photoshop is the death of classic photography. Nothing rendered in Photoshop, in my opinion, is believable. I work in a medium (commercial advertising) that requires extensive photo retouching. We use a firm in upstate NY, iretouchpix.com. They're old school photo retouchers that cut their teeth on the craft when it was performed with an airbrush. Today they have their own software package that does not blow out images like Photoshop has a tendency to do. Possibly this photographer should've consulted with them before releasing these very revealing photos. (Ironically when photos were altered by professionals using airbrushes they were rarely detected/discovered. When the first Microsoft Paint software program started altering photos digitally, the term "airbrushed" was coined to define the digital rendition. Yes, I've regretfully been in the business long enough to know the history of the craft.)
Food for thought - how will these subjects explain the fact when they're hired again (if they're hired again) for commercial work and their images appear more viewer friendly than the ones taken for this shoot?
This is what a *truly* beautiful woman looks like as she ages.
It's sad that you think these photos are "revealing" and unflattering, or that the models have somehow been done a disservice. (Or, for that matter, that you assume they're too stupid to understand what was happening at the shoot or what the implications were.)
Some photographers go as far to alter the actual features of a face or body by means of various warping tools in photoshop. I've seen mouths made smaller, lips made fuller, jaw lines pulled in, eyes narrowed and skin obliterated. This kind of thing takes away from the very basic priniciple of photographing a person to capture that person. Ridiculous.
I have been know to soften creases and pore structure, remove zits and moles, but my guiding philosophy is to keep the person looking like him/herself... and above all else looking like a human being.
These are lovely photos. But I have to resist the urge to take a soft clone brush to some of those wrinkles because I know such a thing would just compromise the artistic motivation behind these.
It's a odd experience for a feminist from the 1970's, when women struggled to get past requirements that we be bland, pretty objects, to see everything from dangerous heels and torturous girdles returning.
Why is this happening? My best guess is ever greater competition for ever shrinking resources. Women are just trying to get on some sort of economic lifeboat that will allow them to survive, and they'll do anything and use anything they can to succeed at that.
I would have guessed that men have diverse tastes, so this couldn't happen.
The real problem is that humans adapt and expect more on a pretty much continuous basis.
A standard is established, and when that becomes accepted and commonplace, the fashion industry ups the ante. We all continue to acclimate and the industry has to keep getting more and more extreme in order to get noticed and to get products sold. That's why that Ralph Lauren Photoshop nightmare happened. It couldn't have occurred in an industry that wasn't trying to out-do itself every season.
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