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- Newsgroups: rec.photo
- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!adcmail!briang
- From: briang@atlastele.com (Brian Godfrey)
- Subject: Re: one looks fatter in photos
- Message-ID: <1992Nov21.083055.15856@atlastele.com>
- Organization: Atlas Telecom Inc.
- Distribution: na
- Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 08:30:55 GMT
- Lines: 45
-
- In article <92Nov13.175932est.47906@neat.cs.toronto.edu>, veatch@cs.toronto.edu (Tim Veatch) writes:
- > In alt.supermodels there is a discussion about why thinner
- > models are used throughout advertising and to what effect
- > this has on society (particularly women and eating disorders).
-
- I do not read alt.supermodels (nor have I ever heard of it) so maybe my
- theory has already been discussed, but here it is anyway..
-
- Models of the type which would be referred to as "supermodels" are used
- primarily for marketing. Marketing relies heavily on exaggeration or
- hyperbole. Super(thin)models are just a visual form of hype.
-
- As to whether they cause women's eating disorders, I think not. The
- vast majority of women see these models every day in ads and do not
- have eating disorders. The small number of women who do have eating
- disorders should look to the real causes of their unhappiness and
- not blame it on scapegoats. Also, society should quit labeling any
- woman who does not have the body of a supermodel as having an eating
- disorder.
-
- >> A few people thought that a thinner person
- >> would "photograph better", simply because the photo
- >> would look more like reality, suggesting
- >> the old adage (?) that "one looks fatter in photos".
-
- Nah, I took a picture of a pretty heavy woman a little while ago and
- she was quite happy that I was the first person in years who had not
- shown her with a double chin. She definitely looked thinner in the
- photo than in real life. Sure do wish I knew how I did that...
-
- >> I'd like to hear from this perhaps more experienced crowd in rec.photo.
-
- Oh! sorry.
-
- >> Personally, it seems bogus.
- >> If the photo didn't look like reality, then that would
- >> mean that the camera lens is not shaped correctly.
-
- No, you can do strange things with perspective and focal lengths to
- make people look fatter/thinner. But those things work on everyone,
- not just models and fat people.
-
- --
- --Brian M. Godfrey
- atlastele.com
-