Beauty

2010-09-10

When I was younger, images of fashion models and celebrities in the U.S. seemed normal and attractive to me. Sometime in college, my reaction to these images changed. In part, fashion images have changed, but my perspective has shifted significantly too. Getting into photography definitely had something to do with my change of perspective. Through the camera, I came to understand how complex, subtle, and beautiful the interaction of light and real uncovered skin is. I also became more aware of how much photography can manipulate how a person looks.

These days, most fashion images strike me viscerally as bizarre and grotesque. Models' proportions are stretched, their bodies too thin, their expressions cold and lifeless, and their poses strange and uncomfortable. Skin is painted flat with make-up, and later air-brushed. The fashion is to look literally like a corpse. I think that many people might agree in a superficial intellectual way that these images are problematic, but the truth is that the vast majority of people, including academics, readily accept these images as real, normal, and attractive.