Dove Beauty Evolution

A U.S. "Dove" campaign highlighting ethical questions regarding perceived beauty and fashion shoots. Aired in 2005, this campaign was very successful. It started off on the Internet and this helped to gain publicity very quickly and then when it was shown on TV the success of this campaign grew even faster. The trailer shows a photo shoot for a magazine depicting how the model comes in without makeup and then is transformed very dramatically with the use of lighting and full make up including foundation, false eyelashes etc. that completely change her whole face. The lighting accentuates everything that is done with the make up.The speeded up photo shoot with many many shots taken and then many rejected shows how selective this process is. Each photo may be completely different and can be mediated so a true image is not presented. The really drastic point is in the post production work where the whole facialk structure is changed beyond recognition. For example, thew neck is stretched and the eyes are made bigger and the slogan at the end is intended to weigh up what is happening. The woman who is transformed is an ordinary member of the crew - not a professional actress or model. The slogan reads - "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted." Today's perception of beauty is very distorted as we are so used to seeing artificially created images of people which are not true to life. They represent an artificially constructed ideal of beauty as opposed to natural beauty which is hidden away during the post production stage and thus the audience is deceived into believing that this kind of beauty exists in the real world when of course it does not!

I got the idea for these photographs from a Dutch campaign entitled "Women with Guts" the message of which is quite clear as they have taken an outline of each subject eg. office worker, pregnant girl and demonstrater. These photos are not just portraits but silhouettes of each one which have been filled in with photographs of their daily life giving connotations and suggestions about how they regard their lives and relevance to 21st Century woman.

Here are some of my works within photoshop creating layers and using manipulation to create a very dramatic image. Step One - to select the middle white tones using a magic eraser and set two 20. Step Two - to remove the inner section so only the dark areas of the nose, mouth and shadows remain as shown in the previous photo. Step Three - to create a layer behind the first layer of the car on the road so when loaded up, the second layer can be seen through the top layer as shown in this photo.

Idea Three.

To produce an image entitled "The Prolonged War" . "Eternal Conflict"
This idea of the human body which is always in conflict with its environment, infections, spots and blemishes. As we seem to be always fighting some kind of problem with our skin, especially acne . Through digital manipulation I can produce a face with bullet holes and barbed wire texture to produce an image which demonstrates this idea. To shoot this I would need a macro lens and a light studio in which to produce a perfect image of the face. Once done, I will need to obtain images of bullet holes, explosions and barbed wire and would use Photoshop to incorporate all this in my photograph

Idea Two
To choose an ethical debate regarding food and the production processes eg. poultry. Or Anti-Smoking or Healthy Diet or Obesity. To somehow portray the original image but have the realization or the truth behind the product made clear through a blend between one product and another

For this series of campaigns they have created shocking dramatic images to try to tun people by the manipulation of the fisherman's hook that represents the addiction

and this caused much controversy over this was in fact scaremongering tactics
An article in the Daily Mail

Anti-smoking advert 'is too frightening'

A health campaign which showed smokers being snatched by fish hooks in their mouths has been criticised for frightening children.

The Advertising Standards Authority received 744 complaints about the Department of Health TV commercials and posters.

A TV advert showed a woman folding clothes while a child watched TV. The next second the woman was dragged from the room by a fish hook attached to a wire

A man walking down a street was also seen being dragged along the ground and over a car bonnet by a hook and wire into a shop selling cigarettes.

The aim was to demonstrate the addiction to tobacco and highlight a Government campaign to help smokers kick the habit.

A series of billboard posters showed smokers with pained expressions and a taught wire pulling on hooks embedded above their lips.

The campaign attracted the highest number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority for two years. Today, the authority criticisesthe handling of the Government-health initiative.

The official watchdog said most of those who complained considered the images were "offensive, frightening and distressing", particularly to children.

It ruled that the commercials cannot be shown during children or family viewing times. It seems the posters will be banned outright.

The Department of Health said the adverts were designed to confront smokers with the controlling nature of their addiction and were not meant merely to attract attention or to be gratuitous.

By SEAN POULTER

Both these images have been put through post production on their contrast and on their tones to signify certain feelings and meanings, for example, grubbiness, dirtiness, ill health etc. But the selection process of the characters has been quite atypical through their representations as the woman has been depicted as very working class with gold earrings.

Within this image we can see how they have incorporated the textures and subjects from the original photoshoot and have placed an artificial background
but within these two images they have tried to replicate the same kind of lighting to create a more fluid photograph

In this series of images, the manipulation of the image is very subtle and is quite easy to mistake from a distance. Each of these images has the original real life image within but by placing a replicated image layered into a frame of the same image this has created a whole other world and a dramatic overall image.
My idea
A Day in the Life
For this concept, I am going to explore how a scene changes through the day and how the mood of the environment changes also and its uses. By subtly cropping the night image into the daytime image within a frame /window /mirror as depicted in my research images to try to create a panoramic view within the different times of day

post production in Photoshop

Images taken on raw format have been put through post production in Photoshopthus changing the colour balance, lens correction and inverting the colours to create a surrealist image. As well as this, I have played around with artistic filter in twist/twirl format - either highlighting the entire image or parts of the image to create completely different photographs from those which I took originallyFor these two images,I tried to photograph architecture and invert it and put a twist spiral effect as this would be extremely unusual for the architecture here is quite mundane. For example, a photograph of the cooling towers at the NHS hospital - Leeds General Infirmary. The other photograph of the lighthouse on Whitby harbour is my second example.

This idea helped me to go on to produce further work of this style in portrait and sport photography. This gave significant meanings to my portrait photographs.For example, I have used a crop shot and selected one half of the screen to put the twist effect which rotates the clouds and twists the background. This gives connotations of thoughts which are going through the subject's mind and the idea that perception is reality.

In this advertisement image by Olympus we can see how image manipulation has been very dramatic in this particular photograph. By putting a very watery and twisted effect together this has created a truly surrealistic view of the world which I also tried to replicate in my own photograph on the right using similar techniques.