On the occasion of my twin daughters’ birthday last week, we wound up in a discussion about digital photography and the ethical dilemma inherent in “enhancing” still shots. The journalist in me says if it’s going in the newspaper, don’t mess with it. I got in terrible trouble once for inadvertently reversing a negative, making it appear that the subject was left handed or had her hair parted on the other side or something.
Betty’s husband is a cinematographer and can light just about anything. Last year, he bought a digital camera and installed Photoshop on his computer. Now he can really fix everything, like airbrushing out wrinkles and dark shadows under the eyes. Hence the dilemma.
He had taken a picture of his mother with her new grandbaby. She had seen the picture in its original print. He then “enhanced” the photo, bringing up the light on her face, smoothing out this and that. He wanted to send it to her, but his sisters told him she might be offended. So what did I think?
I said if it was my photo, minus the peaks and valleys, I’d be thrilled. I have no illusions about how the ravages of a life in the sun have altered my countenance. And the pooches under the eyes? I wouldn’t miss them for a second. And those little chicken things on the jaw line? Outta here.
But, he said, would his mother feel the same way, having maybe a decade or so on me and having had two more children? Oh, gosh. That’s a tough call.
Since this is the big three-nine birthday for my daughters, the discussion turned to removing the real wrinkles on the real faces, rather than just on the photos. Several of their friends have had noses, chins and eyelids “enhanced” with scalpel and laser. (No Botox users that we know of.) Susan says they don’t look better because they don’t look like themselves. Betty says she wouldn’t go under the knife for anything that wasn’t a matter of life or death. The consensus seemed to be that one should develop character to go with the furrows of time.
What ensued was a debate over the need for and results of recent surgical enhancements to such TV notables as Greta Van Susteren, Joan Rivers, et al. The verdict: Greta, Yay; Joan, Nay.
I was beginning to feel funny. My mother and my older sister had some help in that department, and the results had been pretty good. They both denied having had face lifts, though they enjoyed the compliments of their friends, tactfully couched in phrases like: You look rested, in the case of Mother; and You’ve recovered beautifully from your fall through the glass door, in the case of my sister.
My younger sister and I have sworn that we would never, never, never even consider even a tiny correction to gravity’s pull. Not even if we got to looking like a Sharp-Pei and had difficulty seeing through layered lids.
I would, however, have no qualms about having a really flattering picture of myself. Something I could look at when the image in the mirror is too, well, lifelike. I would like my son-in-law to turn his lens and glamour lighting my way and see if I can finally get a mug shot that looks like the real me. (Most of my photos look like somebody I never even met.) He says he would be happy to shoot me, in flattering light (would this be semidarkness?) of course. With the digital camera?
I’m game only if he Photoshops my image. Can he fix up the pooches, shadows and folds and still have it look like me? This is probably not possible. But I certainly wouldn’t be offended if it worked out that way. The only ethical dilemma is whether I could use this “enhanced” photo in the newspaper. I suppose if I’ve divulged the secret, there would be no problem. So, if in the future, you see a really good picture of me over this column, in the interest of full disclosure, I will say the photo may have been digitally enhanced.