Tag: beautiful

Really, SI?

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

The SI Swimsuit issue is hitting the news stands tomorrow.  I jokingly commented that if you put all of their past swimsuit photos together you can make a flip-book of "The History of Bad Over-Photoshopping."

But honestly, it goes beyond that.  It is bad photography, period.  Yes, yes... from a technical aspect I'm sure these photographers using $10,000 cameras and enough lighting to bring Niagara Falls Hydro-Electric to a grinding halt are technically taking good photographs.

To me though these photos fall way short for such a wealthy and professional publication.  There is a serious lack of style and artistry to these pictures.  And then they Photoshop out any traces of humanity from the photos before publishing the end results.  I'm sure some editor somewhere looks at them and in a very pompous way considers them to be masterpieces, but for the love of all that is good in this world, why does the popular media feel the need to make models plastic?  Look at these examples:

Alex Morgan of the US Women's Soccer team.  She also played for the WNY Flash in the Women's Professional Soccer League, so I've actually seen her in person.  Trust me, she doesn't need to be Photoshopped into a Barbie doll's plastic perfection.  They have done their best to remove any sense of texture.  I don't know about you, but to me part of what makes a person interesting and alluring is their individual and personal features; the textures, the flaws and seeing them just being themselves.

This is posed and brutally unflattering.

Natalie Coughlin, a US Olympic Swimmer.  This one is even worse.  At least Alex's can almost pass as a natural smile, but this pose looks so forced and unnatural, it almost looks like she's actually in pain.  Again, over-photoshopping has been employed to not only strip down her features into a flawless, plastic surface, but her "body paint" doesn't even look like it is on her body!  She looks like a paper-doll with a clip-on swimsuit.

These are ridiculous and extreme examples.  When will magazines like SI learn that these women don't need to look plastic and unreal to be beautiful?

Sunday Hike

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

On Sunday, the sun was shining and the temps were above freezing.  Not that these things are necessary, but they encourage outdoor activity this time of year.  We went for a hike in the state park and decided to challenge ourselves by climbing down a ravine to the creek bed.

Normally this time of year, that would be impossible, due to heavy snow.  Bu this year, the creek isn't even frozen - as you can see above.  The creek isn't even swelling from run-off.

An odd winter, indeed.

Although in the shadowy recessed of the hill side, you can see ice formations from the ground water escaping.

The second picture should give a bit of perspective - the side of the ravine is probably about 30ft down to the creek bed, not horribly steep, but you wouldn't want to just fling yourself down the side.  As we were exploring and photographing, a man yelled down to us asking how we got down there.  Not sure what he expected for an answer but he didn't have much of a reply for, "Uh... we climbed down?"

I was going to say, "We jumped, and the landing was soft. Give it a try!"  But I'm sure if he survived it, I would have gotten sued.

As You Were

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Photographers do what they do for many reasons.  Because of that, sometimes I just like photographing photographers working.

I took this picture at the Oklahoma City Memorial.  This young woman had set up large, wooden carvings of words...  Love, Hope, Peace...  around the plaza and was artistically photographing them with the various elements of the memorial bathed in a red glowing sunset; the long shadows creating their own drop-shadow effect.

I wish I could have seen the final results, but I didn't want to disturb her in her work...

Love.

Peace.

Hope.

I wish these things for everyone.