In a day and age where computer programs can make literally anyone look perfect, its quite difficult to find an esthetically pure image. I myself have been guilty of making a person look perfect via retouching at the expense of the overall mood and artistic nature the photograph was trying to communicate. It’s so easy to become immersed in the world of making everything look perfect. I personally believe this is because somewhere deep down inside we are trying to fulfill our own need to be perfect. Retouching a subject’s face or parts of the body admittedly is necessary in a lot of cases. I’m not suggesting we all become purist photographers and stop editing our photographs for the sake of “artistic value”. If you’re into that, you can pick up a Lomo fisheye from Urban Outfitters, hit up your local hipster hotspot, and go to town with creating crappy art. I am suggesting or encouraging rather that we pay a little more attention to the overall mood of a photograph. Don’t get lost in your own agenda to make something look perfect at the expense of being able to see the beauty in the age lines in someone’s face. This is something that I have been learning for the past week or so and thought I’d share it with you. 

Below is a image I dug up for the simple sake of this blog post. The fist image is completely raw and untouched. 

The second image is slightly altered with some simple color treatment and I also took the distracting lines on the bottom right side of the photo out. There was no retouching done to the face. Overall, I wanted to work with the image instead of work against it. I wanted to simply amplify the art already there and put my own color treatment and style on it. 

I’d love to know what you think and if this helps or challenges you thinking. 

Cheers!

-JR