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...but you don't (really) look like this, do you?

 
 
It was a regular workday for Mumbai-based photojournalist Ritesh Uttamchandani. He'd been shooting Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin ahead of the release of her film Margarita With A Straw for a magazine he worked for four years ago. All the poses were captured, all angles explored. Ritesh packed up quite satisfied with his frames.
By the time the magazine landed on his desk hot off the press, Kalki Koechlin had five extra toes. The magazine, in its attempt to 'beautify' her leg, brought an ankle closer to the other and had forgotten to erase the original bits. "So, she had extra toes that were dangling in the air. Pretty embarrassing for everyone involved, including the actor," says Ritesh, who worked in the UAE prior to his stint as a photojournalist.
Four years later, the cover of Vanity Fair has been yet another rude reminder of the perks and perils of digital manipulation of photographs. For its annual Hollywood issue, the American entertainment magazine decided to bring together the swish set of the film industry, who were captured by the legendary portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz. But someone, somewhere on the photo editing desk of Vanity Fair decided, albeit unconsciously, to have the last laugh. The result? Reese Witherspoon appears to have an extra leg on the cover of the magazine while Oprah Winfrey, in one of the inside photos, seemingly has an extra arm. The #photoshopfail has led Toronto Star's entertainment columnist Vinay Menon call it a Mutant Issue!
Today, the ill-fated Vanity Fair cover has supplied fodder for many a giggle on social media. What it has also provided is an opportunity to pause and reflect on the ethical boundaries within which these tools should be used. Retouching is not a new phenomenon. In some cases, it is even advocated to truly harness the potential of a photograph. Today, however, these tools are being used excessively, and obsessively, to create an absurdly unrealistic idea of the world around us. Whether it is the slightest hint of a bulge being replaced by a leaner frame or a skin tone being smoothened beyond recognition, the idea of being picture perfect is making way for a brand of aspiration that can have a dangerous impact in the long run. What should be worrying is that this is not a phenomenon limited only to celebrity, fashion and lifestyle magazines. In 2015, the World Press Photo Foundation, that gives away one of the most prestigious awards in photojournalism, had to drop 20 per cent of its entries because they were excessively and blatantly altered. In 2016, Steve McCurry, the man who shot the famous Afghan girl for the National Geographic cover, was accused of altering his images substantially; instead of denying the allegations, the Magnum photographer maintained that his works fell within the realm of visual storytelling.
It is said that an image speaks a 1,000 words. The question is - how do we trust these words when the image is heavily altered?
RETOUCHING V/S DIGITAL MANIPULATION
It isn't really uncommon to hear the words retouching and digital manipulation being used interchangeably. But the devil, as they say, is in the details. Caleb Arias, an Instructor with Gulf Photo Plus that organises the UAE's longest-running photo exhibition, says there is a big difference. "Every photographer retouches his or her photos - maybe to correct the white balance in a shot, or to enhance the colour of the sky, or to remove flyaway hair on a portrait. Retouching simply refers to enhancing your photographs and it's a common practice, though the extent to which it should be done is often debated, especially when it comes to fashion photography. Digital manipulation, on the other hand, is when you're adding or removing elements from a photo that were either not originally there or needn't be there for the viewer to see." Caleb adds that the latter is where things tend to heat up a little.
To give perspective, he states that as long as the work does not belong to the realm of photojournalism, creative liberties can be taken with digital manipulation to achieve "an artistic effect". For instance, he says, if a photographer is shooting a high-production fantasy shoot for Game of Thrones, one should expect digital manipulation as the photographer would then work to make his or her photo match the creative vision. "If, on the other hand, a photojournalist goes to a war zone and manipulates his photos afterwards to add extra smoke for dramatic effect or removes an unwanted bystander from a shot, then there's a huge ethical problem because that photographer is distributing photos that are meant to be taken as fact."
Clearly, any alteration of photograph - be it retouching or digital manipulation - is a sensitive exercise that should ideally come with its own set of dos and don'ts. Some of the most prestigious photography platforms in the world have codified these guidelines. Manipulation, Caleb says, has destroyed careers. "There were few instances that provided a sobering reminder that there are huge consequences for the work we create and how we create it. The most notable being the Souvid Datta incident last year in which the photojournalist who had previously received a Pulitzer Center Grant and a Magnum photography award, was revealed to have plagiarised the work of Mary Ellen Mark using Photoshop to duplicate a subject from one of her photos into a photo of his own."
However, there are quite a few newsrooms where ethical boundaries are left to the discretion of the photojournalist and nothing is codified on paper. As Uttamchandani says, "Since the appreciation of the final product is also subjective, it's best if photographers have their own guidelines."
ALL THAT GLITTER
Being aspirational in their appeal means that celebrity and lifestyle are tricky territories. Most brands and publications in these segments are essentially hardselling an idea that is clearly not meant for everyman or everywoman. The result? Perfectly sculpted bodies with little or no room for bulges, flawless skin tones, and absolutely no room for anything less than perfect. In doing so, there have been many publications that have received criticism for going overboard. Sometimes, the celebs who have been featured on the covers have called out the excesses. For instance, in 2003, Kate Winslet publicly slammed the British GQ for slimming her waist. In April 2016, Kerry Washington expressed her disappointment with the AdWeek cover that had lightened her skin tone. In a long Instagram post, she wrote, "It felt strange to look at a picture of myself that is so different from what I look like when I look in the mirror."
These voices are making a far deeper point, which, to put it simply, is, "Leave us alone." "Digital manipulation of women's bodies in popular publications is a much deeper nuisance with its counter effect on feminism and racism. It's no secret how misrepresentation of women's bodies has caused a whole generation to suffer from dysmorphia, eating disorders and a distorted view of race and culture. If this is not unethical, I don't know what is," says Aishwarya Tyagi, who edits a UAE-based bridal lifestyle magazine.
The onus largely lies with the editorial team that brings out the publication. Understandably then, the call to edit, brighten or alter an image should be in the hands of an editor who understands what it means to manipulate the meaning of the image. "This is why it's important to constantly bring in new talent in the publishing industry. Newer voices and cultural diversity in a newsroom would mean that giants like Vanity Fair can avoid giving Witherspoon three legs because someone in the team will step in and say, 'No'," says Aishwarya.
However, it cannot be denied that the request to enhance images sometimes can come from celebrities themselves. In that sense, it's as much up to them to set the agenda.
Viral Bhayani heads one of the strongest networks of celebrity photographers in Mumbai, who might qualify as Bollywood 'paps' or paparazzi. Traditionally, the nature of this work should leave little or no room for any retouching of the photograph. But Viral does get requests from stars to retouch their images. "Mostly actors who are going through diets and are under strict nutritional plans like their images to be retouched. The confident ones are not bothered. Artistes, especially actresses, are never happy and they wish everything was shot and later changed on the Beauty Plus app (he also posts his celebrity images instantly on social media)." Due to the increase in demand for retouching, Viral says he's considering setting up a retouching team.
THE REVENUE ASPECT
It's one thing when the call to edit an image is in the hands of people who populate the newsroom, and quite another when it is a brand looking to hardsell its products. A former fashion editor from a renowned publication, on condition of anonymity, reveals an incident that throws a light on what happens when the balance between a publication's editorial and commercial ambitions get skewed. "We were working on an advertorial for a clothing brand and the clients who were paying for it requested 'real women' to be shot for a four-page feature. When the shoot was done and the pages were sent to the client for approval, they requested some heavy editing of the images, even when the editors were against it. This included 'making her thin' (this woman was pregnant) and 'adding light to her face' (this was a dark-skinned Indian woman)."
Fortunately for the editorial team, the editor stood the ground and heeded to only a few suggestions that did not pertain to digital manipulation.
Of course, the client never returned.
DIGITAL ENHANCEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
With social media becoming the currency of our times, the tools for retouching and photo enhancement have reached, albeit in a capsule form, to a wider population. Everyone and anyone can take a picture from their mobile cameras, install apps like Beauty Plus that not only allow a basic editing of images, but also enable you to 'slim', 'tone', 'contour', and post the best version of that photograph on social media. "Filters hide flaws and the fallout of democratisation of the medium is poorly-skilled photographers," says Ritesh.
This 'harmless little exercise' is leading to an abundance of photographs that are gorgeous to look at, but not necessarily true. Social media consultant and former professor at Columbia University's Journalism School Sree Sreenivasan says it's symptomatic of a larger problem. "We are now living in a world where people are constantly comparing themselves in every way possible. There is a movement towards taking greater control of our lives. In most instances, that takes a lot of work and energy. And here comes a simple way in which you can do it, something that does not cost you anything. It's easy to manipulate images and you end up being in a situation where you cannot trust what you see online. Looking at a photograph of someone you want to date, you feel they're 6'4", when they are not." This mistrust of images on social media, Sreenivasan warns, will raise grave issues in the long run. Not to mention the fact that the said 'abundance' of beauty comes with its own consequences.

Tara Wyne, a psychologist with Lighthouse Arabia, says girls as young as five to 10 are developing eating disorders because they are influenced by the desire to be perfect. "If children are being bombarded with images of young tweens and teen stars who've been styled and put together, and then digitally enhanced, they'll naturally accept this as the norm."
Digital manipulation has now entered our lives in more ways than one. It has not only manufactured aspirations, but is slowly and steadily leading a generation to a quest for an ideal that is false.
anamika@khaleejtimes.com