In this text, Fontcuberta questions the use of Photoshop to retouch photographs widely publicised in the media. She talks a lot about actress Keira Knightley, and how her figure has been altered multiple times to suit a particular role she was playing, or product she was promoting.
Chanel enlarged Keira’s breasts in their famous ad, to give her a more ‘feminine figure’. However, this was seen as perfectly ethical, due to the fact that it wasn’t false advertising, because she was promoting a perfume, not herself. In fact, she was even a “trending topic across numerous celebrity gossip blogs” for her enhanced chest. Fontcuberta then goes on to give an example of false advertising. Olay were slammed by the ASA and had to retract an advert they’d created for one of their anti-ageing creams. The advert featured a youthful looking Twiggy, but was later found to have been manipulated to erase all wrinkles or signs of ageing. The fraudulent images enhanced the advert’s power of persuasion, and was therefore pulled from circulation.
“Corrective digital retouching or ‘adjustment’ has become standard practice, a kind of default post-production process that is taken for granted and passes without comment”. We’ve become so used to seeing doctored images, that it’s become normal to us.
Fontcuberta also brings up the point, that it’s scandalous for photographers to edit their own photos, simply to make the composition more interesting, whilst in no way changing the focus or concept of the image. But it’s perfectly fine for publishers to manipulate photos so that they can sell more magazines, “justified on grounds of editorial policy”.
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