HNT Editorial: How to look like a million without lifting a finger
Via Barelace here are two wonderful sites on photo retouching. Think you don't look as glamorous as covergirls and celebrities? Hey, neither do they!
GirlPower: Retouch is a flash animation showing detailed steps that turn an ordinarily attractive young women into a familiar but strikingly inauthentic glamour object.
You Shouldn't Have Left the House from Tyra Bank's website. A set of before and after photos of Renee Zellweger, Kate Hudson, Pam Anderson, Tori Spelling, and Gene Simmons. The funny thing is while several of the people look beyond plain without makeup others look, in my opinion, rather nice without. There's another site out there that among other things (la la la you can't hear me) shows Johnny Depp sans makeup and lighting and with his hair pulled away from the sides of his face. (He's still not bad looking, you just never, ever see him that way.)
I bring this up not to knock down celebrities. They're just like you and me. But that's sort of the point of HNT! They're just like you and me except... you and me? We don't get a thousand dollars of makeup and lighting when our friends whip out their Brownies and snap a few pix. Or even when we settle in for a little quiet time and do some serious half-nekkid photography. And you know what? I think we're better off without it.
Happy HNT (or Half-Nekkid Thursday!)
Good shot! http://roguenekkidness.blogspot.com/
[Oh cool, a virtual HNT event at the 2006 Rogue Performance Festival. Details here! Thanks, Lecram. --fl]
Ok you just hit on one of my own personal fetishes - watching men get undressed. There's something so hot about it.
Thanks for making me need a cold shower. =)
Happy hnt!
[There are nearly 100 photos in this series. With any luck you may need more than one, Mia. :-) (Think lather!) Thanks! --fl]
an example of how suggestion can be more interesting that being graphic......how the imagination wanders to the other buttons and the zipper. happy HNT!
[Well, it will get a little more graphic over time, but not "graphic" graphic. It's still pretty much a typical shower. Happy HNT to you too, Lime. --fl]
Ohhhhh......that open fly......
*melt*
Love it.
Happy HNT!
[Thanks, Blondage. --fl]
great post and excellent pic!
Happy HNT!
[Thanks, Mergrl. Your pic's pretty nice this week too. --fl]
You know, that is very sexy, really!
Happy HNT!
[Thanks, Lee Ann. --fl]
Oh, my.... yummy yum with promise of things to come... Can't wait to see the rest...
Annette
[More coming, the good, the bad, and the mildly naughty. :-) Thanks, Annette. --fl]
Hmmmmm something got messed up in my previous comment, I am Annette from Unshroud and not Lee Ann. And I still think you're yummy lol
[The comments came through ok. I hope it wasn't me calling you Lee Ann, Annette. If so I apologize. --fl]
omg! so sexy, the opened jeans make me wild! yummy! HHNT!
[Glad you like that, Sunny. Thanks. It's so much fun to do. --fl]
Very very nice shot! HHNT!
[Thanks, Crimson. By the way, I appreciate the way you manipulated your HNT image. You enhanced the image, yes, but not with intent to deceive. --fl]
The scary thing, Fig, is even with all the 'reality' tv out there, you'll rarely see the celebs as they are. Image becomes everything, and the package sells.
That's a very sad thing if you think about it. Basically, they become the image. It's akin to the rules you have to memorize to marry into the royals.
I'm digging the shower series, you know that ;)
HHNT, hon.
[Oh yeah, it's a huge committment. (Remember how Paul Ruben's contract stated for a while that all his public appearances had to be in guise as Peewee Herman? Getting busted in that theater must have been as much a relief as an embarrassment.) Thanks, DN. --fl]
figleaf-
you are such a tease! 100 days is a long way to get to those great toweling off scenes that were 2 pixels high...
-sweetpea
[I agree it's a long time. Yikes! Weird to think about how much I'm going to have to write between now and then. Oddly, I never once finished a three-page paper in high-school. I'd say "If my teachers could only see me now" but... they'd still be marking me down for run-on sentences. --fl]
great shot! hhnt.
[Thank you Randi. And by the way, quit teasing yourself about your HNT photos. You've got lovely skin and sweet curves. --fl]
Good job man! Us celebs have to stick together....
HHNT!
[Yeah! (I wonder if all that makeup makes them actually *stick together!* :-) The problem with too much makeup is it blows out your skin and gives you weird tanlines so you look even scarier to yourself when you get out of the shower. It's a viscious cycle.) Thanks, Chuck. --fl]
Kewl Shot..looks like 1 million $$ to me :)
[Thanks, PB. Which always reminds me of the old joke: "You look like a million dollars... all green and wrinkly." :-) --fl]
I love your HNTs!
[Thank you, M. I appreciate it. --fl]
Niiice...very nice...no retouching needed there at all...
Happy HNT.
[The cool thing about taking your own photos is you know it's you, but you can put the camera where *others* see you instead of where you see yourself. It's really kind of cool to get that other perspective. Thanks, Chick! --fl]
Yep, we're better off without it. Happy HNT!! Great piccie :D
[Thanks, Christa! I love your drawings, by the way. They're funny, cool, and well-executed. Your photos are sweet too. Between those and your writing it's a great mix. --fl]
Lovely as always Fig, happy HNT!
[Thanks, Ell. --fl]
Oh, yes ... Thursday is my favorite day of the week!!! I have to agree with what the others have already mentioned, even if it is redundant: Half-naked (or, in this case, just getting there) is much more sexy than total nudity! You win the prize again, figleaf!
[Thanks, Rhia. --fl]
I love the suggestion of that shot... makes me want to take a seat on the counter and enjoy the show. :) Happy HNT fig.
[Nice mental image, Me. Thanks! --fl]
How true... To much emphasis is placed on outer appearance... it doesn't matter what we look like.
I like the plain, untouched looked better myself.
I also like the teasing nature of your photos... nothing sexier..then a man undressing for you.
Thank you!
[Or a woman undressing for me. And not "strip teasing" so much as just being there, making it part of life. Thanks, Needra. You're a good friend to have. --fl]
Happy HNT, figleaf!
[Hey, you too, sweetie! I'm so sorry about your dog. It's so obvious from your photo how you felt about him. I know it hurts that he's passed away. Take care, Camo. --fl]
I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for such a well though out HNT because it re-inforces what I was trying to get across in my HNT this week.
p.s. loved the pic too...now zip up and off to work ;-)
Happy HNT!
[Thanks, Ladybug! By the way, thank goodness you're "built somewhere between a Cello and a Rollercoaster!" You've got a wonderful, thoughtful blog. --fl]
i, too, think we can do without the makeup and lighting...
i love this pic...
peace...
Thanks, Monkey! --fl]
i, too, think that we can do without the makeup and lighting...
i love this pic...
peace...
It's really too bad we focus so much on the area above our neck, and not enough in the nether regions!
Check my blog post today, Fig, you may find something there you like...!
[Hey, a whole set of "first kisses" posts! They're all great, Mona. I liked them all. Thanks! --fl]
Oooh I do love a man that looks like hes a bout to take it all off...or, are you putting it all on? EIther way, nice shot! Happy HNT
[There's be a new photo from the series every day for a while. Not all of them half-nekkid. You'll see, Susie. Thanks. --fl]
that's a great shot! HHNT
[Thanks, Jericho. Nice setup for your photo in the text of your post. Good use of black and white too. --fl]
Darling, I can't beleive you said "brownies"! I've only ever read about those!!!
It's amazing how much airbrushing can affect photos! I always touch up photos of myself and my friends, but nowhere near the amount that that website showed! wow!!
[Yup. "Brownie" (the first mass-production snapshot camera) used to be a derogatory term for amateur photographers in old-fashioned newsrooms. I stick mainly to adjusting color balance. One of these days I might do the full-hollywood effect on one of my photos, just to see how close to, say, Dolly Parton or Bruce Willis or something I could bend it. :-) Thanks, Shay. --fl]
It is amazing what you can do with just a bit of touching up. I've cheated (peeked with my nose very close to the screen), so I know the rest of this series is great.
Kiss.
[Thanks, AAG. I've noticed how people cheat so I'm trying to upload these one at a time instead of all in a bunch. :-) Ok, ok, 100 or so photos is actually just a lot to deal with. It's not *exactly* touching up but I do want to edit my face out of some of them. :-) --fl]
Happy HNT to you too :) Thanks for posting those links - always informative and I always knew those mags were retouched :)
[Yeah. It's weird. I mean you know they're retouched, but it's wild to see someone grow maybe two cup sizes, have her shirt ironed, a waist put in where waists don't actually go, etc. Very wild. Thanks, Katy. --fl]
I really like this picture of you. Human, sexy, natural.
XO
[Thanks, Goose! I'm not all too human, by the way, I'm just human enough. :-) --fl]
People make to much money taking pics of other people who make even more money but not me I am it for the art.
Happy HNT!
[Good on 'yer, David. Good photoshopping too, especially since you're doing it for art and not to look "more like you." --fl]
With computer graphic work you can make the universe exist inside a ball, create unreal creatures for movies, animate nearly everything...and make the "ideal people" even more unattainably ideal. It is no wonder humanity is less satisfied with their body every year.
Dove was creating a series showcasing "natural women" trying to show that the ideals are meaningless...but I think even they used photography tricks and computer editing.
[The problem isn't so much the tricks -- our eyes compensate for things like color and lighting to a surprising degree so "photoshopping" tricks are built right into us. The problem comes from crossing the line from removing distractions to outright misleading. Even *that* isn't a problem if we know how to recognize it and don't assume people somewhere else just naturally look that way. Thanks, Kitty. --fl]
Regarding your comment above...
Visual illusions are perfect examples of how our eyes can lead us to see what isn't really there. But the tools they use are useful for turning the 2D image on our eyes into a 3D world.
I suppose if all they did was compensate for the flaws that occur in photography making her look like in real life I would not be so annoyed. Rather it is the idealizing that is irritating in those ads. Reminding me why I started avoiding all but the paper recently ;)
[Yup. It's not that there's no room for idealism -- what else is theater but that? But if we're presented with the ideal as if it were real, if we're presented with the ideal and told to feel bad because we fail to match up (as if anyone could)... that's a problem. Thanks, Kitty. --fl]