no Photoshop

The Voyeur And The Muse: Real Beauty

Real Beauty is the latest entry in my ongoing series The Voyeur And The Muse . This was another fantastic collaboration between model Nine Lorena Gabriela and myself which if you haven't you can read about here PHOTOEXPERIENCE: NINE LORENA GABRIELLA. After our shoot Lorena and I grabbed coffee and discussed several ideas that I had about future projects and discovered that we had a lot of similar ideas. It is always wonderful to meet a model that you get a long well with and share the same artistic sensibilities.

For those of you that do not know, The Voyeur And The Muse became a series where I was seeking to explore that connective tissue between the camera and subject. I have always had the idea for Real Beauty  in the back of mind but after a recent chat with a photographer about beauty in the world of photography and what the trends are in terms of what is more accepted, my interest was stirred again.

Suffice to say, In this digital age we live in, we hardly ever see real beauty. We all know that when we see people in magazines or any other medium, there is more than likely some degree of Photoshop work or what is more commonly called Airbrushing. Sometimes the image can be retouched so much that if you probably ever saw that  person in real life, they may be totally unrecognizable. So what does that say? I have often asked myself this question.

Being a professional re-toucher myself, it goes without saying that I LOVE Photoshop. I have been using Photoshop since version CS2, that's version 9.0 to yo yungins, (man I am old). For what it is, Photoshop is a wonderful tool. It is a wonderful artistic tool that can help you achieve your vision in ways the camera very well may not.

Photoshop is like what CGI is to Stop Motion. Speaking of Stop Motion, did you know that Stephen Spielberg wanted to use a variation of Stop Motion called Go Motion for Jurassic Park? Yea see the test video below. Go motion incorporates more blur to give more of a realistic effect then Stop Motion could. In the end he decided that the CGI, which was in it's infancy yielded much better and more realistic results.

 
 

Back on point though. As artists we are also authors and by that I mean  our work has properties of influence. We say, skin has to be perfect and blemish free. Your body has to fit a certain mold, your hair has to look like it was styled by the Gods because you know what, this is what beauty is in our world.

So this is what drew Lorena and I to push this concept. My instructions to her was simple, when you wake up, come over and lets shoot, No make up, no hair done, just as you are and that is exactly what we did. We had a wonderful time on this shoot and I hope you enjoy my art.  So until my next blog, thank you for reading as always and do take care.

The Voyeur And The Muse: Real Beauty

Why should I Photoshop her hair to make it perfect?
Why should I Photoshop her eyebrows to make it perfect?
Why should I Photoshop her skin to make it perfect?
You are beautiful just the way you are.