I had a nice parcel land on my doorstop today.
Sprint, the magazine of the TVRCC, saw some pictures of a private session I did with Julian Barter back in March 2010 and they made enquiries around using some in their magazine.
A few emails and phone calls later and here they are in a 6 page article 🙂
1 front cover and 2 double spreads…..not bad 😀
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Reproduced with the kind permission of the TVRCC |
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Here’s a pic of the main TVR that I personally edited in prep for large format printing 🙂
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I’m sometimes blessed with well planned and long schedules to create some images, sometimes requests come last minute.
Today (my day off) my other half nabbed me and told me she needed some pictures for the Prism Textile Exhibition to be burned on a CD and posted within an hour. She’s looking to be added to the exhibition with the small pieces of textile art which she creates when she’s not advising people on nutrition and health
She only needed 6 pictures to accompany the items she’s submitting, so a quick bit of gaffer tape and some cardboard and Bob’s your auntie.
One of the designs sent for approval
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Should we allow images used in media to be extensively edited?
From my perspective, absolutely.
Creating a perfect image is a key element to making a product or service desirable.
Can it cause problems in society where being constantly subject to seeing these images can affect our perceptions?
Undoubtedly.
In the same way that a percentage of the population are more susceptible to hypnotism or subliminal messaging, we will all be influenced at some level by what we see every day.
Should we put disclaimers on images that are edited in magazines, billboards etc….?
Yes, I believe that we should have a something on the images so we know they’ve been retouched.
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How can we find a middle ground that doesn’t have ugly distracting banners taking a percentage of the image in the same way cigarette packets have the warning labels on them …. which don’t work. I know friends that bought skull&crossbone cigarettes because they were perceived to be more dangerous (go figure)
I thought of a possible solution:
Rather than obscuring a part of the image with a white warning box, why not put small colour (or greyscale) circles/squares subtly in the corner of the image or page which relates to the editing work that was carried out.
It could be ISO standardised so that it’s the same for everyone to use, or alternatively each magazine could have their own key chart shown in the bottom of the MastHead.
For example:
Blue: Colour change (e.g. eyes, clothes, skin)
Red: Blemish Removal
Green: Texture alterations
Yellow: Shape changing (Liquefy/Stretch/Shrink, bigger eyelashes, narrower thighs etc..)
Grey: Added extra elements (CGI, blending other images)
Here’s a rough example of how it could look.
Everyone should be happy 🙂
Advertisers keep their perfect images and consumers subconsciously know it’s been enhanced away from reality.
So, what’s your opinion on how images should be shown in the media? Edited or warts ‘n all? 🙂