The Dark Art of Airbrushing

Jo Swinson, in sharp contrast to her more colourful colleague Lembit Opik MP, who is famed for dating the Romanian cheeky girls and more recently lingerie model Katie Green, supports the contention that such idealized representations of feminine beauty create negative self images within teenagers, leading to anxiety, depression and eating disorders. This view certainly holds water within the medical community as several studies have suggested that female readers, notably teenagers, suffer from a diminished self-image after reading fashion magazines. Given that the modern teenager will typically view over a hundred thousand female images by the time she turns sixteen, there is the contention that perceptions of what represents a 'normal' female form become highly distorted. This is supported by a survey by the 'Dove Campaign for Real Beauty' which suggested that some 42% of third grade girls would wish to become thinner. Others credit the youthful intellect with the ability to separate day-to-day social reality from published fantasy.

The New York Times recently published a landmark video editorial titled 'Sex, Lies & Photoshop' which addresses the gulf that lies between the mundane reality of our everyday lives and the fantasy world in which we prefer to spend our precious moments. From all accounts it would appear that the 'retouching' of images has become the norm rather than the exception. As depictions of beauty sell hundreds of millions of magazines, cosmetics and consumer products every year, it is perhaps only to be expected that idealized perceptions of perfect body forms have so far held sway over moral issues. It would seem that there is little new under the sun, and medieval portraits of the nobility were also 'painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosyncratic facial qualities of the person in question'. Similarly digital images today are 'edited' to present idealized forms rather than accurate representations of the individual model in question. Related issues also plague the male psyche, although when men with poorly toned physiques suggest that the prevalence of tanned muscular men is the product of the Balco chemists, tanning companies, and photographic manipulation they tend to receive little empathy.

Notorious cases of digital infidelity

The now infamous Kate Winslet GQ cover was allegedly airbrushed after the actress had let the editor know of her 'displeasure' at the outcome of the shoot. To be fair, we do not always look our best, especially after a long winter, pregnancy, or illness. However, given the extent to which Kate Winslet's curvaceous beauty was trimmed down as if to darkly hint at the widespread nature of the practice, the episode came across as a form of cynical joke. Recently Gisele Bündchen had her 'baby bump' discretely airbrushed from an ad campaign and, just as bumps can be removed, they can also be added, perhaps most famously to Kiera Knightley's promotional poster campaign for the movie 'King Arthur'. More recently the trimmed and toned images of Faith Hill on the cover of Redbook courted controversy, although the virtual 'loss of Faith' seems to have been blown out of all proportion. Top glamour model & actress Kim Kardashian had the cellulite removed from her thighs and hips after posing for Complex magazine, although the actress rebutted the cutting comments of the gossip columnists with a defiant defence of her natural curvature as she sported her newly toned and trimmed physique. The fact that discretion has long directed the editors of Playboy magazine to airbrush genital shots of their models speaks volumes for the benefits of censorship through photographic manipulation. After all, who would really want to be thrust into the glare of the camera lights and exposed unedited for all the world to see?

History of retouching art

The retouching of the human image is of course nothing new. The colourful distortion of human form and face exploded during the Renaissance and lost all semblance of reality with the advent of the surrealist and impressionist art forms. Portrait painters of the 14th and 15th centuries would routinely flatter their wealthy patrons giving rise to the expression the 'best side'. However, with the development of photographic technology in the mid-19th Century a medium was at last created that could faithfully capture images and serve as an impartial witness to a moment in time. This 'hiatus of truth' was truly brief, as the first recorded case of photographic manipulation was of an c.1862 photograph of Abraham Lincoln in which the President's head had been transposed onto a healthier torso. Photographs have since been manipulated to serve every base human purpose from propaganda to fraud, and from incrimination to sexual innuendo. Before the advent of the computer, photographic manipulation could be achieved through retouching with pigments, double-exposures and darkroom collages. Today the manipulation of images has become rather less time-consuming.

The digitisation of photography in the late 20th Century in effect meant that photography had reverted to an art form rather than a depiction of truth, and today no video or photo can ever be taken at face value... Fact has largely become a matter of perception, and popular perception has been seduced by our collective desire for icons of an ideal world.

Airbrushing has to all intents and purposes fuelled the popular psyche, inspiring a culture of greater aspiration. Only two years ago an inquiry by the British Fashion Council concluded, demonstrating a mastery of understatement, that airbrushing could 'perpetuate an unachievable aesthetic'. Although this was in effect a tacit acknowledgement of the Utopian world of modern photography, every insider knows that it is as difficult to put the genie back into the bottle as it is to catch a master of the dark art of photographic manipulation in the act. To be rational, fashion is after all a fantasy product, and those who spend tens of thousands on fashion apparel and accessories could hardly be perceived as grounded individuals.

Any seasoned photographer will tell you that airbrushing is as old as the Macintosh computer and that the amateur retouching of holiday and wedding photographs has become deeply engrained within our culture. If blushing brides dream of having been beautiful, if for only one day in their lives, they can digitally exorcise the 'red eye' from the flash photography of the wedding breakfast and airbrush the odd spot or blemish. Should we really be surprised that those who spend millions on advertising campaigns are tempted to enhance the appeal of their expensive product? Today there are many thousands of books, web sites and magazines proudly devoted to the modern art form of airbrushing. To criminalize them at a stroke would be as pointless as drawing a line in the sand or defining which shade of grey is in fact black. To demonstrate that a photographic image has actually been manipulated is often difficult, but to prove that it has wilfully led to such a distortion of an individual's appearance that it has created an unattainable and 'damaging' aesthetic is akin to criticizing an Olympic 100m champion for making the rest of us feel slow. The minute a model applies cosmetics to her face has she not distorted the public's perception of her own natural beauty? We prefer to define human culture through ideals and extremes rather than by what is average or mundane, such is our innate desire to improve our lives and our gene pool. Without such icons and dreams we would never strive for a better world, span estuaries, or scale new peaks of human achievement. There will always be lies, damn lies and photographic images...