Your thoughts on this?

Come on guys......

It's just glamour photography. Glamour is defined as illusionary charm.

The way I look at it is that if glamour was REALLY important to us we would have a glamour thread on RFF dedicated to it.

I am glad we don't.
 
From what you posted earlier about your biography, it seems to me the main reason why you react in this rather angry fashion is that you've found in fashion an ideal of beauty that you can identify with and strive for in order to escape depression and feel comfortable in your own body; and at this point where someone raises faint criticism about whether what is presented in fashion is all that natural, the essential and natural character of this ideal of beauty comes under attack in your eyes, which must seem rather dangerous - so you move to defend it rather aggressively.

Not outrageous assumptions by any means, but not accurate either.

A few years ago I posted a picture of Miranda Kerr as a reference for colors/tones in a film. The following page or two was just comments from RFF members saying that she was too skinny and looked like a little girl etc etc... I can't find the picture anymore, but here's another:

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What's particularly amusing is that she's clearly exceptionally healthy and fit (she's a qualified nutritionist as well as a model), and yet she was picked apart for being slim and for her girlish looks.
If I had posted a picture of a clearly overweight woman, I can bet 100% there would not have been 1 negative comment relating to her size. In fact models of this size are currently being encouraged by the media, and pushed as a role model for women of all ages:


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This in my mind is a wonderful example of the bandwagoning and double standards against thin girls, and why I get angry over it.


And with that, I've said everything I can about this - I'm done.
 
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That sort of photo never appealed to me. Her skin looks almost metallic IMO…the few times I do portraits, I like softer, lower-contrast, more "romantic" monochrome portraits.
 
...if glamour was REALLY important to us we would have a glamour thread on RFF dedicated to it.



I am glad we don't.

Don't give us ideas:p

I thought Glamour had pretty much disappeared from the [amateur?] photography scene, thankfully. I grew up in the eighties with an interest in photography but a schoolboy budget that didn't stretch to photography magazines. As such I'd stand in our local branch of Martins flicking through countless images of women lounging on hay bales with denim shirts that had lost all their buttons, until a member of staff would come to reprimand me for looking at the 'soft core porn.'
 
I do not get this, what is wrong with good looking women?

I believe the turn to 'fatter' or 'more healthy' models have more to do with the market (the fatter or more healthy women with money) than anything else. Just compare the population (both men and women) today with the population 20-30 years ago, we are much fatter, so is it these skinny and unhealthy models who push us in that direction?
 
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This in my mind is a wonderful example of the bandwagoning and double standards against thin girls, and why I get angry over it.


And with that, I've said everything I can about this - I'm done.[/QUOTE]


Now you are using this photo out of context.

This was some French fashion designing fart's answer to the critique on skinny models, it's called cynicism, like in is this what you want.
These are extremes and as usual there are a lot of good people/body's in the middle ground.

I'm with Keith on this one.
 
When you reach a certain age you pay no attention to the marketing. You buy what you need or want. The marketing is irrelevant. This assumes you have the smarts to make a properly informed purchasing decision. If not not then unlucky. Most marketing is aimed at the young for that reason. The young are less rational and more prone to impulse buying.
As to the use of women in the marketing, well they chose to do it. The problems with that are not the super models who are mostly well educated and don't have eating disorders. It's the young wannabes who really haven't got a snowballs chance of making it that have the problems. It is those that the fashion industry need to pay attention to.
There was a brilliant BBC series on models and model agencies a while back. Basically nearly all the top models are "discovered". They are not wannabe models. They are scouted from the streets or wherever by model scouts who just walk up to girls who fit the brief they are given and invite them to a FREE model shoot with reputable agencies. Nearly all the 100000s of models that are trying to be models don't get there. The agencies don't need them when they can hand pick the best from the streets. That's all the wannabes need to know. If you ain't been picked off the street then you ain't going to make it as a super model. OK so a handfull do but the top agencies really don't need them and they end up at the lesser agencies who shoot glamour or porn and not fashion. In those places the girls are encouraged to diet or have boob jobs etc etc. You won't find those girls on the catwalks of top designers.
So you can't make generic statements about the fashion industry causing problems. There are sections of it which do and other sections which don't. The problem is really with mostly ignorant girls aspiring to be something they can never be and they are taken advantage of by the less reputable agencies and photographers.
 
Kate Moss, Miranda Kerr, and nobody (e.g. media) needs to convince me :)

Ah Kate Moss, posh totti hand picked by a model scout from a Brazilain beach (or was it n the carribean) whilst on holiday with her parents I think. Never was a wannabe model.
 
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Men and women like these kinds of shots, what else needs to go wrong???

I'd appreciate this kinds of shots if they were meant to offend but these are made to look "beautiful" and ideal. That makes them just another lie to get the world up and running.

Anyway, I think photography now is like music in the 80's... give them new tech and they'll abuse it.
 
The problem with this is that it's based off the common notion that one cannot possess both physical attractiveness AND intellectual attractiveness, when each of them is mutually attainable.

Think about it... Intellectuals in media are commonly portrayed as uptight, nerdy, geeky, unattractive etc etc, whilst physically attractive people are often portrayed as stupid, one dimensional, vain, dull and uninteresting. It's not actually truth, just social conditioning.

I'm not saying that...what I wanted to come across with is that any woman can be smart and beautiful...but I would be more attracted to her intellect over any outer beauty...anyone can sit with a pretty girl...I would also like to talk with her...:cool:
 
I'm not saying that...what I wanted to come across with is that any woman can be smart and beautiful...but I would be more attracted to her intellect over any outer beauty...anyone can sit with a pretty girl...I would also like to talk with her...:cool:

As they say - smart, hot, sane, pick any two :cool:
 
I think that the portrait hits on several nerves.

calling it 'natural beauty' when the lady is wearing heavy makeup, and the photographer used heavy post work.

Then the natural discourse leads to photoshop and its effects on self-esteem and body issues.

I don't have anything against heavy makeup or post work (up to a reasonable point). but I really think the photographer needs to come up with better thread titles.

His work can be seen here. and, its just what you could imagine from a fashion and glamor photographer. Its tame and kind of benign work actually, so I'm amused at the controversy here on RFF.

Never been a member of FM, and so, I have no opinion about the place or DPReview. but I don't like images looking overcooked.

now, just don't get me started on portraitprofessional :D
 
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