Airbrushing Gone Awry: Discussion of Photographic Truth and Ideology

This week, one of the topics of discussion was photographic truth and the question of its existence in a world littered with images that have been Photoshopped to death. These images, primarily of celebrities, raise concerns about both the idea of capturing truth (a concept that was once considered the hallmark of photography during its early years) as well as concerns regarding the idea of beauty in our society.

In a recent online piece done by Newsweek, the past decade's "most egregious retouching scandals" were put on display. Each scandal shows the grossly edited image in question alongside the original, untouched photo. Red markings pointing out the already heinous differences between the two emphasize the fact that what's being shown through these images are no longer truths by any means.








These images and their comparisons to the actual photographs should be alarming, especially for those who are not aware of the extent to which celebrities are altered to look the way they do in advertisements and magazines. But for the rest of us who are well aware of this standard practice in the media industry, they should still be just as alarming. They perpetuate this idea that altered photographs are an improvement or somehow better than the originals from which they came. Our consumption of these images represents a kind of confirmation or acceptance of this idea.

We also discussed the concept of ideology and how reproduction of photographs also reproduces ideologies of the ruling class. Instead of reproduction in terms of copying, reproduction in this case can mean the reproduction of a particular idea of beauty (especially for women): slender and light-skinned. In all of these images, this idea of what beauty is supposed to be is effectively reproduced and made for consumption.

Source: Newsweek