The Illusion of Perfection

In the world of glamour photography, the search for perfection never ends. Not only do we hope to photograph models who are as close to (our version of) perfection as possible -- i.e., perfection in beauty as perceived, for the most part, by Western standards -- we then try to come even closer to perfection with the various forms of post-processing we apply to the images. In other words, we're creating fantasy and illusion.

A lot of people take exception to this practice. They believe, and possibly they're right to some extent, that we're creating standards of beauty that girls and young women aspire to, but can never reach. But isn't that true with many things in life? Don't professional athletes, pro baseball players for instance, set standards of baseball playing excellence that most young boys will never reach?

The worlds of beauty and glamour are fantasy worlds. Often-times, the real problem, at least in my mind, is that too many young people cannot seem to distinguish reality from fantasy. They see an image of a model and seem to forget that this model may have had various forms of cosmetic surgery to enhance her beauty. That makeup artists and hair stylists have worked hard to enhance her beauty for the benefit of the camera. That the photographer then manipulated light and shadow to further enhance the model's beauty and attractivenness. Let's also not forget the work of the post-processor who then re-arranged pixels to hide flaws and blemishes, who used software tools to create perfect looking skin and even to modify body parts to create the illusion of perfection.

Some say "Reality sucks!" And when you boil it all down to the basics, that's the driving force behind all these manipulations designed to create the fantasy and the illusion of perfection.

Take a look at this short film from Dove, the soap people. It's a great example illustrating how an attractive, although somewhat average-looking, model is transformed into something else-- something nearly perfect in terms of our perceptions of beauty.

Instead of worrying about the unachievable standards of beauty and sex appeal we set for young women, maybe we should be educating them in the differences between reality and fantasy and how to recognize those differences?

The pretty girl pics accompanying this post are of Stefani. I didn't do much post-processing on these because, when young women look like Stefani, I don't think reality sucks at all.