21 Sep Seeing Is Believing?
Remember the days when you saw a really awesome photograph that was visually engaging say... 10 years ago? The comment that inevitably seeped from your mouth was something along the lines of "this is so good, it looks fake," yet full well knowing it was most likely the real deal, cause at that point in time digital photography and photoshop artists were just really starting to go mainstream and it was uncommon for a photograph to undergo complete and utter manipulation by the knife of a photochopper. Today it's the exact opposite, if the photo looks awesome it's gotta be fake. Something has been tweaked, thinned, trimmed, cut and pasted, filtered, and/or drawn. Which brings me into the meat of the discussion...
What has photography become? How unrealistic have we become, how have our expectations lost every little scrap of perspective on the real world? As I browse thousands of model and photographer portfolios I'm overwhelmed by the amount of doctored photographs, neither providing true representation of themselves or work. A model with so much post work done to her she looks like a barbie doll (no exaggeration), and photographers claiming work as "photography" after a picture has spent a good few hours getting "tweaked" in photochop (yes, chop). Hell, the only ones being honest are the photochoppers showing their work, cause that is their true work.