The professional pitfalls of editing
The recent backlash against Princess Catherine and her digitally altered photographs was a media frenzy that I think, for many, ignored a crucial component of the furor.
Image from ABC news
At least five major news/photography sources (Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images, Agence France-Presse and the UK Press Association) retracted and/or issued a "kill order" on the image. The reason? The agencies refused to use manipulated images.
This is an amusement to me, as one of the things I pride myself on is not having to use photoshop or other post-production software to deliver excellent images. Now, there is absolutely an art to the skills and techniques used in this area, but I consider it digital art, not photography (literally meaning, to draw with light). The practice is common enough that it is considered normal to have to spend time (sometimes hours) digitally manipulating an image to look the way you want, and this work is often mentioned as a component of photographers' fees. Having said that, there is always a pressure from clients to adjust their chin or remove a wrinkle here and there. I refuse these requests, and prefer to use posing and light to create a great image. I do touch-up blemishes, and of course adjust levels and contrast, but I don't alter someone's appearance to look like something they are not.
A conversation with my mentor on this topic revealed something I wasn't fully aware of, or at least not fully aware of its implications. He mentioned a client who, wanting to save a few bucks, employed a local make-up artist who specialized in weddings, instead of flying in a professional beauty make-up artist. The result was a series of images that were unfortunately unusable, and the entire session had to be reshot.
One might reasonably ask, why couldn't they just edit the images to fix the make-up issues? The answer: it wasn't allowed.
I am sure that many of us are aware that there has been a growing trend towards "real beauty", using models who accurately reflect society and the people they are marketing to, and a deliberate pushback against image manipulation that ranges from being misleading to anatomic impossibility. Some countries have taken the extra steps though of actually legislating this, based on two principles: body-image distortion and the risk of eating-disorders, body-image dysmorphia, and other mental health conditions; and truth in advertising.
The current ease with which one can apply a filter to social media images and videos probably contributes to the acceptance among most people that images can be, and are, altered for public consumption. The rules are certainly different when it comes to portraiture, beauty and glamor photography, where the goal is to create an eye-catching image, and there is a certain expectation that "perfection" or even "better than life" is allowed in the art.
Commercial photography though is another matter, especially when it comes to people. I went into CVS just today and there are make-up and beauty images throughout the store marked with the "Beauty Unaltered" logo, indicating that the photographs were unretouched and not altered by photoshop. CVS has been campaigning on this issue since 2018, and today the vast majority of the beauty images seen in-store are marked with the campaign logo. The women have pores on their skin (!), small moles, eyelashes are their own. The year prior Rimmel had an advert pulled because of the misleading post-production edits on the model's eyelashes, which gave the false impression that the product worked better than it truly did.
France actually has a law requiring altered images be labelled (that article is a great resource by the way on various examples and statistics, and even prophesized the advent of AI art today!). Israel has banned adverts featuring underweight models, and other countries like Spain and UK have also come down on potentially damaging portrayals of body image.
In practical terms, what this means is that if a commercial client wants a great-looking image, they actually have to have artists working on capturing a great-looking image - and not merely fixing a mediocre image to look great. As I've alluded to before, the rise of high-resolution sensors and ultra-sharp lenses has left us with images that capture every line, mark and pore on someone's face, which often leaves the photographer retouching to make them look "better". A professional commercially-focused make-up artist, hairdresser, and stylist will be able to put someone in front of camera who frankly won't need retouching. Furthermore, a talented photographer with the right eye and equipment doesn't need to retouch their images. As one of my inspirations (the late great Peter Lindbergh) said "I don't retouch anything." He, like my mentor, actually required the magazines who published his work to agree to not retouch his images. Lindbergh was no slouch in the photography world - in fact he could arguably be credited with creating the concept of a "Supermodel".
Think of an image of a Supermodel from the 90's and it is probably a Lindbergh pic - captured on film, using natural light, and unretouched. Remind you of anyone else perhaps...?
Capturing realistic yet beautiful images isn't just something to be done for bragging rights to prove a point, it is actually a cornerstone of a massive component of modern commercial photography, especially for fashion and cosmetics. It's also clear to me that, even in an age of AI and image manipulation, retouching, and creation, there is a clear need for the role of an experienced pure photographer - someone who just draws with light. I find that extremely comforting.