Essay

Glamour photography – Looking at how photo manipulation can create a distorted or unrealistic view of the self

I have always been interested in the way that images can be manipulated to create a ‘perfect’ and ‘flawless’ view of people and along side this the belief that is very pervasive in our culture, that ‘Thin Is Beautiful’. The high amounts of photo manipulation used within the media industry has a huge effect on certain social groups within society; the most effected being young teens. This is the time teenagers focus on developing their own individual identities, they are also highly susceptible to both social pressure and media images, which can have a profound effect on their body image.  I am also very interested in ways in which the media and photographers create a ‘Hyper Reality’[1]. Due to our daily exposure of this fiction, I want to know if we have come to expect it in our real lives? I also want to find out if photoshopping has gone to far?. All the information that I have collected has been from a range of sources, to enable me to look at the topic from a range of view points.

 

One of the first topics I have looked at is how both men and women are represented within the media, and the cultural stereotypes that come with both genders and how this representation can change depending on the primary audience. Men and women are represented very differently within the media depending on who the target audience is, or the product that they are involved with.  Stereotypically there are very specific gender roles that are shown within the media, men being very tough, hard and thick skinned and physically they are represented as being big, strong, tall and muscular. For most cases this is very similar throughout a lot of media products; this is something that men would look at as a form of inspiration, this is also how men are shown when women are the target audience as this is the social idea of being attractive and appealing.  This idea of being macho and being effortlessly good looking was a very common representation around in the 70’s and 80’s and was seen with actors such as James Bond, this is a very traditional representation of men that still exists today.

Traditionally men have also always been the ‘bread winners’ or the person in the family who is bringing in most of the money for the household and also the person who looks after the rest of the family. There is also another popular representation of men that is more of a modern idea and has been accepted by our society and these men are referred to as ‘Metrosexual’ and this term was first used within the 90’s, this term is referring to men who take pride in their appearance for example having smooth skin, being well groomed and taking an interest in style and cosmetic products and are often mistaken as being homosexual even if they are not, these are men who also do not fit in with the traditional masculine stereotypes, created by the media.

 Women within the media are also represented to us in many ways the most common being a housewife,  or objectified as a sex object; again this depends on the target audience who is viewing the product. These representations can be interlinked for example; Desperate Housewives are shown as being stay at home women but at the same time very sexualised. Physically women are represented to us as being slim, young and conforming to the image of ‘perfection’, which again is something that has only been established by the media we are shown; which links back to the idea of hyper reality. This social idea of perfection is unachievable in the real world and is only achievable in the media fiction world, due to the use of photo manipulation and surgery, but because it is so believable and we have seen it so much, the line between what is real and what is fiction is now very unclear.

 Even from a young age most of us have grown up believing that this is the perfect image of a woman, from looking a Barbie Dolls and Disney Princesses when we were children. Although the idea of women being domesticated is a very traditional idea that very much so still stands today as in many media products they are still shown as the ones having to predominantly care for the children and do the housework, although in recent years the idea of men getting more involved with the housework and looking after the family is an idea that is being portrayed a lot more over many areas of the media and this idea of men having to be the main income of the family is not shown as much in the media today. ‘Modern Dads’, a reality TV show which is a great example of this, which follows four stay at home dads show them "balancing their roles as dudes and dads." – Network Materials

 Both men and women are represented differently within the media depending on who the target audience is, when women are represented to a male audience women are shown as being the weaker sex and often don’t have any leading roles or jobs and are quite often sexually objectified. When men are represented to women they are shown as being powerful, very active speakers and look after their family. A lot of the time these representations are only ones, which we actively see within the media and socially what we have been brought up with, they have become almost our expectations for each gender.

 I think our individual expectations of men and women come from the society we live in and what media we are exposed to, regardless of the media format and platform men and women have representations that stay with them throughout to appeal to certain target audiences. I think that these representations are what we come to expect of both men and women in the media, as when we look at the media what we see is the Hyper reality fiction. Having the ability to photo manipulate images ‘Photoshop them’ and easily change almost everything about a person, hair, weight, skin colour and even the location. Although Photoshop is a relatively modern piece of software the idea behind it has been used since the 1920’s and was first used for political reasons to trick and deceive people and also to enhance storytelling. First used by Joseph Stalin as a form of propaganda, the early photo manipulation was done by creating photomontages, which is simply layering two or more images to create a new scene. 

Although more recently photo manipulation is predominantly used within the fashion and glamour industry to create the perfect image that we have become to expect. Although in most cases what we expect to see on the covers of magazines is not real and this is hyper reality, because we have always been exposed to this image we start to believe that it is real so we can no longer distinguish between what is real and what has been modified within the media. Because photo manipulation has been used so much within our society throughout a large amount of the media we are exposed to we assume that this is a true image that we are being shown as we have some trust in the artists and the producers we almost expect them to show us the truth. Although a lot of people know that photo manipulation is used, I don’t think they always know to what extent it is used to alter an image.

Digital image editing has changed the way we actually view digital art and the way that we mentally process the images as in a lot of cases we can not tell what is a photograph and what is possibly several put together as many of the images we look at of women especially in the fashion and glamour industry are composites of random hair, faces, legs, arms – much of which doesn’t even belong to the original model; models become worth only their best bodily features. “I’ve spent over 12 hours on a photo for a hair competition, it was shot by a photographer who wanted a composite created from nine different images. This includes changing arms, torso, and even a head, and adding every angle of good hair available. The result ended up winning for a certain competition, and I was the secret that was never mentioned in the details. Never accept what you see, no matter how good it looks.” - Karis Drake, Canadian veteran fashion and portrait photographer and Photoshop artist. [See artist research]

I think that because we can no longer distinguish between what has and hasn’t been modified this can cause a lot of social problems, for example young teenagers who do not yet know about the ability to photo manipulate could look at images in magazines and online ect and think that the people we are shown actually look like that and this image of ‘perfection’ that we are shown is in anyway achievable.

 As I mentioned previously teenagers are at their most impressionable stage of their life, which leaves them very vulnerable and could possibly cause issues such as poor body image (Body dysmorphic disorder) which can have numerous negative effects, one of the most common is lowered self-esteem, which comes with it its own associated risks. In a national U.S. study in 2008, 25 per cent of girls with low self-esteem self harmed (compared to four per cent of girls with high self-esteem) and 25 per cent reported disordered eating (compared to seven per cent of girls with high self-esteem).  

 "We must stop exposing impressionable children and teenagers to advertisements portraying models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software." – Dr. McAneny from the American Medical Association (AMA). I think as we get older we do not take this images that we are shown so literal and we become more active thinkers when it comes to viewing art and products we are shown and we tend to recognise that the men and women we are shown will have been edited and are more likely than not surgically enhanced.

In 2006 The popular clothing store Abercrombie and Fitch CEO in offended customers by saying that they only want "thin and beautiful" people shopping in their stores after being questioned as to why they only sell women’s clothing up to a size 10. "That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that." While Abercrombie & Fitch offers men's sizes in XXL, this is believed to appeal to muscular football players and sports men.

 

In response to these claims an ‘Attractive & Fat' ad spoof was created by art Major and blogger, Jes Baker who wears a size 22 to challenge the companies branding efforts. "I challenge the separation of attractive and fat, and I assert that they are compatible regardless of what you believe,", wrote in a public letter addressed to the CEO.

Looking at the legal aspects in the Uk and US there are currently no laws about photo manipulation regarding people but there are currently laws about false advertising of products. “Photoshop can create a perfect face when selling makeup, and the company selling that makeup will do anything in its power to reach their customer. That includes creating false ideals of perfection. Repeat this thousands and thousands of times and all of a sudden it has been woven into our everyday life. It becomes very normal, and in ways, expected.” - Karis Drake.

Some people argue that people can be classed as products themselves for example models, A model’s product is in fact her body and this is what she is inevitably selling and making money from so how is this any different. This takes me onto the moral issues surrounding this subject although we can never be too sure if an image has or has not been edited as to the human eye we can not always tell, does this mean that it should still be done, even if we would never find that it has been edited is it still right for the publishers to show us content that has been manipulated so much that it no longer looks like the real thing and then still pass this off as being the truth. I think that it only really becomes a problem, and a question of ethics and morals when the editor, publisher or photographer lies about their methods, motivations and conclusions, and presents their images with the purpose to intentionally deceive the audience, although some people may still not see this as a problem as our morals are very personal to each individual.   

March 20^th 2012 Israel passed a Law, which plans to regulate underweight models as well as limiting digital alterations within advertisements and requires that any digitally enhancement in the photos to make models look thinner must disclose the fact in the advert. The law aims to change the social perception that ‘Thin is beautiful’ and in turn wants to minimise bad body image and eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. The second part of this law requires that models have to have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 18.5 or over; anything below this number is medically seen as anorexic and these women would not be able to publically model, i.e. Catwalks, magazines, advertisements. 

All in all we can see that there are lots of issues regarding the use of photo manipulation and although procedures and laws are being put into action to combat some of the issues, there is still quite far to go. I think that more awareness of the extent that a lot of images are altered to needs to be put in place. The more that people have knowledge on this topic I think the numbers of bad body image and low self-confidence would drop significantly.

 

Jean Baudrillard

 

1. Hyper reality - A media theory created by Jean Baudrillard which explains the ways in which realiy and the fiction created by the media is merged and can not be told apart.