Afternoon,

Thumb through any big glossy magazine today and you will see pictures of models and celebrities with flawless skin, beautiful hair and perfectly formed bodies. Now deep down we KNOW that they don’t REALLY look as perfect as that, but I bet many of you have associated that models’ looks with the product they just happen to be holding/using/wearing in the shot at the time.

Magazine marketeers are always looking at ways they can seduce the customer – you – into buying their product. And often they do this by using Photoshop to digitally enhance a photograph to make it look more appealing, either by enhancing skin to make it look utterly flawless, putting extra shine on hair to make it look more glossy and even exaggerating body part sizes to make them look smaller or bigger (eyes are key for bigger)

Buying is often about emotion. If a digitally enhanced image triggers certain emotions which lead to more product sales of a particular brand, does that make it acceptable, after all, haven’t we been duped to some extent?

Take a look at this photograph. What do you see? I see a beautiful model, confident, happy, newly wed, either looking out of the window of her new home, or maybe her old.

Now what if she were holding a small bottle of Chanel No 5 and was spraying it on her neck. What would you think then? I bet it would certainly conjure up some emotions!

Sadly, the view out of this particular window looks nothing like this. Living in rural Wiltshire we see fields, not tower blocks. The following image is the image actually shot, straight out of camera. I shot the image with the express intention of replacing the background.

What a difference a background makes. Now if the model were holding that same bottle of Chanel No 5, would you still have those same emotions?

I’ll let you decide

Best – Colin