The Camera Always Lies

Years ago, before Venture and the more contemporary “make over” portrait companies became popular the man and me spent an enjoyable evening doing a photo shoot. We took thousands of photographs, even using fans to make it look more professional, and then spent time picking out the best ones and changing contrast, making them black and white and manipulating them until we looked, well, great (yes we had rather a lot of time on our hands in those days). I got a 9.9 on HotorNot with my best shot. But the truth is, the person in that picture wasn’t me, and I’m not stupid enough to believe that I actually look like that.

Many advertising campaigns have been criticised and even banned recently for using too much airbrushing. But do people really believe the pictures reflect reality?

Make up ads aren’t pretending to be snapshots. The idea is that they are glamorous and flawless and I think the people who pulled the ads are being pretty condescending to a public that has more brains than to compare them to real life.

The camera always lies, whether you use airbrushing or not. You pose, you make sure you’re showing your best side, and everyone looks better in black and white don’t they?

But we all lie to ourselves everyday about how we actually look. Hands up who has a mirror face? Those of you that don’t have your hands up now are lying. Eyes wide, lips pursed, abs tensed, you do whatever you have learned over the years that makes you look good. How many times in the day do you actually look like that? The answer is pretty much never (unless you very self aware and/or vain). One of my friends has a particularly distinct mirror face, and she never ever looks like that in real life (she is far more beautiful). But I am always interested to see peoples mirror face, it’s the look we would all want to freeze if we could. Like when your parents said if the wind changes you’ll stay like that, if the wind would only blow while we’re putting on our mirror faces eh?

I heard somewhere that many parents have started airbrushing their kid’s school photographs. I am torn on this debate. On the one hand as a parent I am outraged that anyone could deface photographs of their perfect angels and rewrite history, all kids are beautiful right? Well, no. I wasn’t. Airbrushing would not have been enough for my school photos, cutting me out entirely and replacing me with a picture of Kelly Kapowski from Saved By The Bell would have been the only modification that would have made me happy with those hideous portraits. Although had I grown up in a time when airbrushing school photographs was even an option I know my mother would have been annoyingly uncooperative.

Unless you are one of those lucky photogenic few, for us to consider a photograph flattering a certain amount of manipulation must be present, digitally through airbrushing or in flattering lighting or a certain angle. Whether these things are intended or simply a lucky shot, a photograph represents how someone looks in a microsecond. Not how they look all the time. Take a look through your Facebook friends profile pictures, some people have used their “modelling shots”, others have theirs in black and white, many have used a lucky shot and many more use pictures of their kids. But do any of these photographs really accurately represent the person you know?

Videos are far less forgiving, no hiding behind mirror faces or lucky angles. Maybe the still camera lies but a video is much harder to fool. For this reason I despise seeing myself on video, unless I’m shrouded in darkness and happen to sitting very, very still.

Surely airbrushing is just another way of making the best of a picture, like doing your hair and makeup, or a load of press ups or bicep curls just before the ‘click’ to make those guns and pecs really pop. I understand that some companies are taking airbrushing to an extreme level but what’s the alternative? Airbrushing is still a fairly new technology and like all new things it will be over used until it eventually finds a balance.

I’m sure one day they will find a way of airbrushing videos, or even real life airbrushing, and I’ll be first in the queue, mirror face at the ready. Now if only I could have a fan constantly following me around to blow my hair out I’d be good to go.

There's an app for that

Is there an app that shuts up screaming kids at 3am? Because I would really find that one useful and could imagine it getting a fair few downloads. I’m not sure what form it would take, possibly some kind of hypnosis that gets them to sleep through the night or at the very least settle themselves when they wake up and put their own frigging dummy back in.

I would also be ever grateful for one that stops me from saying the wrong thing to the man when he’s already in a bad mood. This one could be a real relationship saver. They could even call it call it that, it’s quite catchy. It could calculate the number of hours sleep the man has had and offset that with the number of calories he’s consumed, if the number is too low an alarm would go off and suggest that I either just keep my mouth shut or not attempt a conversation without handing over KFC first.

Next on my list would be an auto placator, type in something that I have said and get it to explain to me that I haven’t actually offended anyone. This would save the man absolutely hours and possibly dispense entirely with the need for the Relationship Saver.

There are an estimated 500,000 apps available in the Appstore and 400,000 in Android Market. That’s an awful lot of life sorting, mapping, organising and helping software. How did we manage before?

I have only had my android phone for two weeks and despite being adamant that I wouldn’t start relying on apps, I have become a bona fide app junkie and downloaded over 25 apps already. I am now reliant on my phone to count my calories (is that last KitKat chunky wise?), what the weather is like (no longer content with just looking out the window, I also need to know whether it’s raining in Tokyo or windy in Taipei) and to entertain me while sitting in the kids room waiting for them to go to sleep. I’m then awake half the night trying to kill pigs by catapulting birds into the air, or release a mouse from a maze of Lego. But it’s ok because I’ve also got a sleep hypnosis app to get me off to peaceful slumber afterwards.

Years ago we all presumed we’d be walking around in silver jumpsuits and have robots that would do everything for us by now. But I don’t think anyone could have predicted that we would be relying on our phones so much. Is it really such a bad thing?

The old fashioned gal in me wants to say what’s wrong with a pencil and paper? What’s wrong with the old landline? And you can see the weather on the telly. We have all become so reliant on technology that if we were stranded on a dessert island without being able to Google “how to dig a latrine” and “what species of exotic fruit are poisonous” we would perish fairly quickly.

But on the other hand the man and me have a saying: “use all your tools” which means that you should use everything available to you to make your life easier. As a mechanic he uses time and labour saving devices everyday so he can get a job done in the allotted time frame, and sometimes after a bad day when I’m wondering whether or not to take the kids to Asda coffee shop for their tea to save me cooking and to get us all out of the house before insanity sets in, he will text me and say “use all your tools”. Why make life harder when there are things available to make it easier?

I am addicted to apps. I have just downloaded a shopping list app, and next on my wish list is a to do list. I have become a serial app searcher, any time I find a problem I am straight into the market to see if there is an app to help me fix it.

Some things however will never be solved by an app, dirty nappies and housework for example. You never know though, that robot could be just around the corner. But they can keep the silver jumpsuits until my calorie counting and fitness app gives me a firmer butt to put in it.