Fitness blogger Cassey Ho has released a rather wonderful short video where she Photoshops her body in real time to appease all the hateful body shaming comments she receives on her blog, Blogilates. It is a powerful look into how we as a society perpetuate this impossible beauty standard and the impact that software such as Photoshop has on what we perceive to be beautiful in todays day and age.
As photographers we are all too familiar with using Photoshop to "clean" things up. For many of us it is part of the process to crafting an image that matches our vision. What we present to the world is not always an accurate representation and some would argue that this perpetuates unobtainable and unrealistic beauty standards.
One look at Cassey Ho's fitness blog and social media accounts is enough to realize this is a woman at the peak of physical ability. She has incredible strength and conditioning, eats well, and appears to lead a life that is extremely health conscious. Even with all this, astonishingly, she attracts comments and attitudes that profess she is not "good enough". These comments all hint at the fact that she should be leaner, skinnier, or should just plain quit her career.
In response to all these comments, Cassey has decided to put together a video where she Photoshops herself in real time based on the comments she receives. She also posted the above image on her social media, which is photoshopped, to see what kind of responses she would get from giving the masses what they want to see. What we are left with is a powerful message that rings true for our industry and gives us a bit of a reality check as to what we deem beautiful.
[via Smosh]