What Is Wrong With This Picture?

This week I am talking about changing with the times. Photoshop for example is a buzz word that has gone from a specific professional photo editing software to being a word synonymous with retouching photos. Ten years ago we all knew that magazines were airbrushed, but that was about the extent of it, this practice rarely entered into the family photo album. Today however it is a total different story. I am not just coming at this from a photographers stand point I hear moms talk about it all the time. The joys of stretching a photo to look thinner or using the clone stamp to remove your kids pizza stains, all miraculously done from your own home computer. But when does is stop?

Take these photos for example.


They look like your everyday snapshots right?

But they've been altered

Z had chocolate on his face and SJ's skin had some red spots and scratches that I removed.

These photos were edited for the purpose of this illustration. If you looked at the photos posted on my Facebook or here on this blog you will see the latter. When I downloaded both of these photos (at separate times) I was tempted to touch up the photos, but I didn't. I want to remember the way things were not what I deem ideal in my mind.

Let me just say before I sound hypocritical that I do color correction, brightness, and things like that. Or for a professional print I am certainly not opposed to removing a bug bite or pimple. If I am sending out copies of a photo shoot I did of my son and he had a snotty nose I might adjust it because I want them to see him as he normally looks, not the temporary distraction due to a simple cold. On the other hand sometimes my kids do have colds and when the future generation looks back at their family ancestry they will say "yep, they had colds too" or maybe they say "Look great great grandma Natalie always had something stuck in her teeth. What a hoot!" For the most part I think they will just notice that we looked like we loved each other and that we had a lot of fun. That means bug bites, chocolate smudges, scratches, snotty noses and all, but hopefully not all at once.