Looking at an old Playboy

[John Camp]

While cleaning out my attic, I found a bunch of old books and magazines not considered important enough to shelve. One was a PLayboy from August, 1988. Three cover stories: "Gorbachev -- The Great Red Hope?";"The Great Palimony Caper" (a story about a woman suing Hefner for $35 million in palimony); and "Cover Girl Kimberley Conrad, The New Woman in Hef's Life. " (As if anybody might possibly give a rat's ass.) I checked Kimberley first. One of her major talents apparently was standing upright, which would be quite the task, given the out-board weight she had to deal with. Well, to the point: Playboy was, at the time, considered to have fairly high quality photographic printing. After carefully scrutinizing selected images, I would have to say that in terms of sharpness and color quality, they would today be considered mediocre at best. I'm not sure that the problem lies with the high-speed printing, either -- it seems to actually go back to the photos. Possibly soft-focus lenses to obscure blemishes? The photos, especially the cover, have been retouched (manually, probably with an air brush) to within an inch of their lives -- fake shadows under Kimberley's chin-line to differentiate her chin from her neck, and under a necktie. They look like a bad application of watercolor. At the time, though I was taking photos, and had my own darkroom, I probably wouldn't have noticed the bad shading because it was about as good as it got. Now, with years of Photoshop behind us, the manual re-touch is so obvious that it hurts. Some things do get better with time; I worry about Kimberley, though.

 

[dostacos]

well I can say this about that "they aren't there anymore Harry."

old [60s] Playboy joke, one of the full page color drawings two very old wrinkled people [couple] he has a funny leer on his face and has reached out and grabbed her "breasts" that was her comment