Since the Brad Pitt Face post I did two weeks ago, I’ve received a lot of requests – you could say a sleigh full – for more photos of me. Readers’ curiosity is insatiable! Whoever would have thought! I was going to do what I do best – ignore them – until I read this article about legislation being introduced in France requiring all digitally altered photographs used in advertising to be labeled as ‘Retouched’. It got me thinking, a bit, about photo preparation and alteration, retouching, and branding. Here’s an excerpt from the article I read…

“…Some think such a law would destroy photographic art; some think it might help reduce anorexia; some say the idea is aimed at the wrong target, given that nearly every advertising photograph is retouched. Others believe such a label might sensitize people to the fakery involved in most of the advertising images with which they’re bludgeoned. Underneath it all is an emotional debate about what it is to be attractive or unattractive, and whether the changing ideals of beauty — from Sophia Loren to Twiggy — have ever been realistic. Michelangelo painted idealized bodies, so the idea of idealized beauty was already there… It’s a fake debate…”

There was a recent fuss about this bizarre retouching of the model Filippa Hamilton for a Ralph Lauren ad. Look at these two photos closely – the one on the left is unaltered while the right picture, from ads that ran in Japan, is retouched so weirdly that her waist appears to be the same width as her head:

Personally, I am thoroughly put off by this whole idea of fashionable idealism by artifice, using retouching and airbrushing techniques. The Botticellianesque counterfeiting of the human body, the rampage of artificiality, the mock run amok, the beau ideal become faux ideal – I find it utterly laughable and yet annoying, even a touch offensive. Countless magazine covers featuring porcelain-perfect, moleless, pimpleless, hairless, sun spotless, scarless, stretch markless facial and body skin, and hourglass figures where beer barrels once existed, combining to make everything about celebrity, about media-drenched modern society, about pop culture generally, illusory, fake, and shallow. I, for one, lose all interest in whatsoever is not so real.

Therefore, in answer to your innumerable requests for “More Daedalus, please!”, and in the spirit of authenticity and humble genuiousness, here is my early Christmas present to all of my readers, subscribers, and fans – my full-bodied, actual, unretouched and unaltered photo of myself in high resolution, suitable for downloading, printing, and framing.

Let’s call this the Christmas season spirit of veracity and full disclosure!

Merry Christmas to you all for 2009!