I thought I would never see the day when I would feature, let alone slightly applaud the likes of Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian on my blog.  Though this past week in numerous Celeb mags and sites there were features on the whole 'revealing the realities of Airbrushing' thing.  I think most of the magazine and media ingesting public know already that all images featured in publications and videos are indeed photoshopped to some degree or another to make the subjects more aesthetically pleasing or uniform.  Above we can see a released shoot from Complex magazine featuring Kim where digitally she has been sucked, tucked and smoothed out on top of her A-list make up, wardrobe and lighting. 

Obviously she looked amazing in the original photo, but I guess the issue is WHY there feels to be this need of extensive photoshopping to perfection.  I could even personally admit, a little tweaking with the spot healing tool on my CS3, playing around with curves and hues on my Facebook profile pics and I'm just a random member of the public!  I think it comes down to what we want to portray ourselves as and to the most part, it is all quite a bit fake.  However!  I am not actually not that adverse to Photoshopping as a whole.  I really think there is a difference to a shoot like the one above, where they are obviously featuring Kim Kardashian as a personality, a real human being...but presenting her in a package that is not really her, to say a highly art directed editorial photo ad or full fashion feature in Vogue where a nameless model is dressed in full costume amongst an elaborate backdrop.  The reason why I find these things different is the image as a whole, when the highly photoshopped image is seen a sense of fiction is carried along with it, the fact that a model is clad in that season's key pieces in the middle of the snowy antarctic riding on a penguin is pretty absurd and you can't really relate to it.  However, when you see a 'celebrity' or a regular person being featured in a way that is supposed to be 'real' but is actually manipulated then that carries more fallacy, and all the insecurities of most of the female population is heightened as a result.  The fact that Complex felt the need the take inches off Kim in the pic above, hide the cellulite and make her a little fairer highlights their desire to present her in their preferred way, ans that's the danger.

I think the way forward is not just showing more images of un-airbrushed people in features, but just putting out the fact that media images aren't real, and showing more post-release images of standard used images.  Then the magic will disappear in most people's consciousness, and maybe the ad execs will start taking it in to consideration.  For now I just hope that most people who end up reading this post KNOW the truth behind these pictures and there is no way to compare, not that you should anyway.

Check out some similar pics of Britney below and a quite well known ad from DOVE in regards to this too!