RE:Photoshop addiction

A pregnant topic for sure and thank you for how deep you've allowed us into your thoughts, Flora. I hope today has you feeling better. Getting old isn't for wimps, it is terribly true.Artists work outside of reality, from the very first cave paintings somewhere around forty thousand years ago until that photo-shopped picture just published with every freckle removed. Reality is only the beginning of the process. I remember one of my earlier English teachers stressing the point that all writers lie, with words being another form of art. Now that we have photography, and with it, photographic manipulation, it simply means that the lies are much easier to produce. Is this bad? I don't feel that way, as long as the final product is recognized as art, not being offered as or confused with reality.Soon after the very first photographs of the early nineteenth century were produced, people began to screw around with them to create something that wasn't originally there; earlier masters in the last century, like the talents of Ansel Adams who, by using darkroom exposure techniques like burning and dodging, made his art into something altogether incredible, and him into a household word.Indeed, long before photography was invented, who here doubts that Leonardo's view of Mona Lisa was unrealistic? Some have suggested that the original subject was Leo himself, which I find humorously curious, but there will never be a way to know what he was looking at when he produced that one thought-provoking piece, or if there was a real life subject in front of him at all when brush hit canvas. There is creation through innovation, and photoshop and the like are just another set of tools in a long line of ways for the artist to find his or her voice.When my ex (an amateur photog) learned that Ansel Adams had been screwing around in the darkroom to create his art, she was truly upset. I didn't know what to say to her to calm her down from wanting to pull that breathtaking print of his off the wall. When the viewer learns of the artist's tools, it can initially be jarring to the senses. In fact that happened to me recently, when I saw a friend's smartphone photo collection, commenting as I looked back and forth between her phone and her face and body, that she looked almost like a different person. It was nothing more than the phone's instantly-applied software taking away what some might call imperfections. It's those that make us who we are, but who am I to poo poo a technology that makes the picture taker happy with the end product? It is their art, not mine. But as the beholder, I generally prefer the unedited version.Does this make me a better nudist? No. I'm only another set of eyes attached to a brain that loves the sight of all bodies unadorned, whether by clothes or by alteration, but who nevertheless can appreciate the world through another's eyes and find the beauty which comes from within their soul, from somewhere between reality and their vision. I feel as though I've slipped into Rod Serling's voice!

Just had a chance to read your reply Willy, very poignant and thought provoking, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the topic.

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RE:Photoshop addiction

Instagram has a whole host of filters. So many girls are addicted to them. They won't post anything until they think they have the perfect picture.Now, girls like Flora and I have no need for such things. You don't fuck with perfection. lol

True Kerrie. I actually can make my lips look very plump just by simulations a bit of a kiss but why bother. Like yours, my anatomy has other plump parts and when they are visible nobody will look at my lips anyway. I could rob a bank naked and with no mask and nobody could ID me afterwards.

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RE:Photoshop addiction

Thanks for the compliments, and back atcha for all your support for the elegant area we frequent! Flora's ability with the written word prompts deepening thoughts; needless to say (but I still will), her overall countenance prompts reactions from more than the mind ~ what a treasure!

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