Faith Hill retouched in Redbook (source: jezebel.com)
NY Times Opinion Video on Photo Retouching
The NY Times has a decent read today by Steven Erlanger about a French lawmaker, Valérie Boyer, who has:
…created a small furor [in France] and abroad with her latest proposal: a draft law that would require all digitally altered photographs of people used in advertising be labeled as retouched.
As a photographer who does only minimal retouching (i.e., occasionally reducing wrinkles and blemishes on the skin of portrait subjects and then usually only for those who don’t get the benefit of a professional make-up artist) I’d be curious how the law defines “digitally altered”. If I increase contrast or exposure or change the color of the image, would that constitute digital altering the image? Would adding “digital make-up” be altering the image? Wouldn’t having a professional make-up artist on set (physically) reducing wrinkles and blemishes with make-up be altering the image?
I agree that advertising and magazines have and will continue to go overboard with altering images (typically with female celebrities and models). But I’m not sure we should be creating more laws to curb current (and temporary?) cultural issues.
The narrator of the NY Times video (linked above) makes a valid point that if magazines aren’t going to admit to the extent of the retouching in an image then publishing the retoucher’s name might one half solution. And, on that note, I would agree that these retouchers (illustrators?) often deserve as much credit as the photographer does.
An interesting debate none-the-less.
