Pascal Dangin The Master Retoucher or The Extreme Art of the Photoshop

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Alternatively this post could have also been titled Everyone in the Public Eye Gets Photoshopped. I think it's important to stress this phenomenon as a blogger so that no naive souls think they have to try to emulate or marry gods and goddesses.

I happened on a New Yorker article from last year about the emblematic work of Pascal Dangin whom you may not know by name but whose work is widely publicized in fashion magazines. His job is emblematic of today's obsession with digital perfection. Our criteria have been pushed so much that we almost cannot look at a normal photo without thinking that it could be a little more superhuman-perfect...

Danglin is simply put the eye that adds perfection to imperfect photographs. People like Patrick Demarchelier of Annie Leibovitz cannot do without him. More than a simple technician, he is credited for adding a supplemental level of artistry to the raw material of photo shoots. You can see an eloquent example of his work further down.

All this is well and fine except that we know that this type of pursuit of unreal perfection can lead to body-image issues not only for the beauty and fashion professionals but also for the average person.

On the other hand, one could argue also that photography can make people uglier than they are in reality: you know, it adds a number of pounds, it fixates a moment instead of showing the animation in a person, it calls attention to microscopic details that you wouldn't look at ordinarily like the size of your pores etc.

At any rate, Pascal Dangin is leading man behind the oh-so many retouched and photoshopped images that create our society's visual culture and expectations of beauty. After reading this article by Lauren Collins, Pixel Perfect you will be convinced that none of the fashion and beauty images you see are real and all are constructed. Yes, even the Dove advert about real women was photoshopped to make the concept feel more savory

Here is a retouched picture of Demarchelier by Dangin, and the unretouched original afterwards, (please bear in mind though that the untouched model might look worse than in reality as maybe she does not pose very well, or Demarchelier did not give her the best direction for the pose, etc)