Perfecting Picture-Perfect*

A brief, spontaneous response to “The Filter Future”

For many, retouching photos is as routine as tying shoes. You gonna put on shoes? You tie them. You gonna take a photo? You retouch it. Simple.

After all, no picture is perfect. The light may be just right; the skin may be silky-smooth; the teeth may be straight as fenceposts. But there’s a crease in the shirt, or a smudge on the lens, or a sheen on the backdrop, and it has to go.

People have nothing to do with it. Mountains? Could be a little brighter ’round the snowcaps. Buildings? Need sharpening on the windows. Puppies? Fine, puppies are flawless, but everything else can be retouched.

At some point, retouching becomes enhancement. We’re not just smoothing things out now — we’re converting them into artfully-preserved mini-masterpieces of photogenic godliness. We’re altering contrasts, deepening hues, stretching proportions. We’re pattern-filling clouds in cloudy skies, airbrushing hair on bald heads, and adding lens-flares where they suit the mood. The end result? Photos so lip-smackingly gorgeous they could’ve stepped out of a dream.

But beyond enhancement, is pure mutation. Instagrammogrifying-retro-fashion-trast filter with a faux sprockets frame, flipped horizontally and upsized 20%. Mutation makes no room for “better by repair” — it shoots for better by total change.

We’re accustomed to a culture of retouching — celebrities used to do it all the time. And we’re used to enhancement — American TV wouldn’t be TV without infomercials for those little blue pills.

But I say “used to” in these cases, because we’re leagues beyond that now. Ours has become a culture of mutation. Celebrities get botox after botox until mannequinism sets in; there are a dozen kinds of little blue pills advertised in millions as many venues. And photos? The photos we share are warped to the ends of the earth; they’re so overwhelmingly, densely “artsy” they may as well be five-tone paintings. They’re lovely in their own way, but hardly “photos”.

I used to retouch photos. I used to enhance them. I used to take photos — capture moments — both truthy and beautiful, and share them as much. But lately, edit by edit, some of my photos end up so deeply changed, the camera lens itself wouldn’t recognize them.

Our obsession with mutation? It’s a problem. Or it could be. Frankly, there’s no way to tell. Because until we’re free and clear of these lomographic, technicolor retro woods, we simply won’t see the forest for the trees. ₪