Model: Anna
Make-up: Frances

Can you photoshop me to make me beautiful? No. I COULD ‘photoshop you’ to make you anything you wanted…9 feet tall, 10 years younger, 6 legged, green, fatter, thinner, whatever. I CAN do that stuff. But I won’t. I could digitally alter a picture of anyone to make them look different, convincingly enough that only an expert would doubt the reality of the picture (unless you actually did want to be 9 feet tall, 6 legged and green because no-one would believe that was real).

But ‘to make you beautiful’…you are already beautiful. Even the people out there who are reading this and shaking their head thinking “I’m not beautiful”. You are. Of course you fucking are. You might not think you are, but you are. If I didn’t honestly believe that every single person on the planet had beauty within them, I wouldn’t be a photographer.

I don’t ‘make’ people beautiful. I capture people’s beauty in pictures. I show their beauty to them and to anyone else who sees the picture. But I don’t create it, either before or after taking a photograph. Capturing beauty is why I do this job. It’s an astounding feeling and there are very few other feelings that even come close to showing someone a picture of themselves and seeing the look of disbelief and then happiness cross their face as they see that they are, indeed, beautiful.

I’m not being arrogant here or bigging up my own abilities.  I’m talking about the difference between looking at a photograph and looking at your reflection.  A photograph is not like a mirror. When you look in the mirror you see yourself only through your own eyes. You instantly zero in on the parts that you don’t like or the parts that you’re insecure about. But a photograph is a picture of you seen through someone else’s eyes, and that is a view that you rarely get to experience in any other way.

Yes, there are lots of things that a photographer can do to ENHANCE a person’s beauty. Diffused and well-positioned lighting is the main one that springs to mind (coloured light is fun too), along with the skills of a talented make-up artist and stylist. Any photographer who has a clue what they’re doing will never take the lazy way out and shoot a snapshot-level image that they filter to death in an editing program, creating a soft-focus bullshit fuck up of a ‘glamour’ shot. In these photographs, you will never look younger or better. You will look like someone who’s portrait has been butchered by a fraud who doesn’t know how to use photographic lighting or pick up a phone and call a make-up artist.

Just to make it clear, I am NOT referring here to people who create digital works of art with images they shoot. I know people who do that, and it’s beautiful stuff. I’m also not referring to photographers who know how to use depth of field or softness in certain parts of an image to create something artistic rather than to disguise ‘flaws’.  I’m talking about waste-of-space twats with no artistic vision and (usually home printed) business cards that have a ‘before’ shot (something roughly resembling a passport photo taken by a small child) and ‘after’ shot (something roughly resembling a passport photo taken by a small child, viewed through cataracts while drunk) on them.

Avoid these people. Seriously, steer well clear. You do NOT need to be softened and filtered to death to look good. You already look good, and a decent photographer will know exactly how to capture the best aspects of your appearance without turning you into a generic 70s soft porn video cover model. If you’re paying someone for a portrait (whether it’s a picture of your face, something more abstract, or your sexy naked body in all it’s glory) you have the right to get the best for your money. If you aren’t so keen on your wrinkles (or stretch marks, or scars, or the entire area between your chin and your thighs) a REAL photographer will be able to shoot you in such a way as to not draw attention to those things, or to disguise them or hide them if that’s what you want – using make-up and composition and lighting!

Don’t let anyone insult you being telling you that you need to have all of your character and personality wiped from your face and body by smoothing filters in a digital editing program. It is entirely possible to look your best in a photograph and still look like you. Because you, whether you believe it or accept it or not, are beautiful. Already. And a decent photographer will be able to see that.

Please don’t allow anyone who is earning money from you make you feel insecure in order to get paid. Anyone who uses that questionable technique to get their hands on your cash should not be trusted, regardless of what industry they work in. And that is the truth.

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