My Stance on Photoshop

Negative views of Photoshop

     We live in an age where we no longer trust photographs anymore due to Photoshop and other photo editing programs. People will passionately critique fashion magazines for over Photoshopping their models and twisting society's view of what beauty is. I think it has come to a point where Photoshop has a lot of negative views. As a photographer Photoshop is simply a tool I use. I feel so fortunate to live in an age where it is so quick to fix elements in my photographs. I can take out the giant pimple on a person's nose because they unassumingly wouldn't want it in a permanent photograph. I get color into my photographs that wouldn't exist in nature. It's an artistic tool used to manipulate the world for a completely new view whereas before photographs just replicated scenes as they were seen in real life.

There is a line

    I am always on Photoshop and I don't think I will ever stop using Photoshop but I do believe there are standards to be held. Being an American woman I feel all the pressure the media places on us to look skinny and perky. One rule I try to always stick by is keeping a woman's natural figure in the photographs. Tools used to remove fat in Photoshop are giving woman an unreachable vision of what beauty is.

People want to look great

    To be completely honest I do airbrush skin and I am sure it is very obvious in my photos because my models have completely smooth skin. What I want people to understand about art is that it is a representation of life. Paintings, photographs, drawings and pretty much any other form of art will have a piece of the artist inside of it. My style has come to the point where I remove blemishes and create a smooth skin. I feel like my photographs are heavily exaggerated to the point where it is obvious that Photoshop work was done in order to romanticize the image. I don't try to create this false view of a person and try to trick the viewer into thinking they are looking at an unnaturally gorgeous person but that they are looking at a gorgeous photograph.

Before

After