Photography : Photo Retouching
I was down the aisle again today; not a wedding I'm afraid. The "Sunday Shop". Most things on my shopping list had gone up in price again, including my favourite Jam (by a whopping 15 pence). At least petrol hadn't changed since last week.
I've put the shopping away (I'm the kind of person who empties all the bags on the work-top before I start putting stuff away. I'm not one of those people that carrries each shopping bag from drawer to drawer, cupboard to cupboard, putting one thing away at a time. Dunno why, I'm just not). I have a building-site strength cuppa to hand, the radio on and I'm half reading the "Photographer Spotlight" article in Calumet's magazine "Calumet Focus", and half contemplating a few things. I guess I lead what someone in solitary confinement would call an interesting life.
Contemplated thing 1 : Media obsession with doomsday predictions. Melting ice caps, climate change, global warming, pandemics, greenhouse effects, CFC's, ozone holes, acid rain, nuclear winters, BSE, AIDS, Y2K.
Contemplated thing 2 : Media stories that never seem to die; they just keep coming around again and again. Fox hunting, should we move clocks forward/backwards, gay priests, female priests, gang crime, drugs in sport, naughty boys and girls of Rock with one-way tickets to Palookaville, are exams getting easier?, oil supply, binge drinking, GM foods, cloning.
Then on Radio 4 I catch someone saying something like "in the days before photographs were photoshopped" and at that very moment I read, Calumet Spot-lit Photographer, Trevor Leighton claim......
"...the problem with technology is that I just don't know what reality is anymore. Every celebrity picture I take gets retouched to oblivion".
He goes on......
"....when I look at images taken in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, I know at least they are honest".
And this gets me contemplating all over again. This time contemplating Orwellian Reinventions of History.
Everything about photography, I thought to myself, has the potential for 'dishonesty'. Everything from studio lighting (its angle and diffusion) through to hair and makeup, clothes, the choice of lens, lens filters, position of the camera and position of the subject; all can flatter or otherwise.
And when it comes to photographic retouching I thought of George Hurrell. In the 1930's he invented the Hollywood glamour portrait (and the boomlight btw). Hurrell is a one-stop masterclass in lighting and retouching; 60 years before Photoshop.
Take a look at these "before and after" shots of Joan Crawford. Did I mention they are 60 years before Photoshop?
Before Retouching
After 8 hours retouching
Hurrell's art was not a quick fix for poor photography. Hours of painstaking retouching was involved; scrubbing each negative himself, working with graphite powder to smooth away blemishes and unwanted lines, eliminating stray hairs, even sketching in eyelashes to make them longer and more dramatic. And this wasn't new art. It echoed previous habits of portrait painters who would flatter their sitters with unrealistic paintings.
There was/is also practical uses. The road to Hurrell being a big cheese at MGM began when his early work came to the attention of leading lady Norma Shearer. She had been trying to convince their Production Chief (and husband) that she had what it took to play the saucy lead role in The Divorcee. She hired Hurrell to take portraits. She got the role and Hurrell was hired as head of MGM portrait gallery.
It's puzzling why there are so many claims that photo retouching is new. Especially when Photoshop itself uses terms borrowed from traditional darkroom techniques (airbrushing, dodging, burning, unsharp mask, filters). No matter what we think of photo retouching it has a important place in the short history of photography.
Below is another (timeless) image of Joan Crawford.
This image is more than a retouched glamour shot of a long gone actress. It's an artists interpretation of a cultural ideal. A record of another time. An honest piece of work by a photographic great; someone who's post-visualisation and retouching skills are 60 years before Photoshop.
Sources:
Books:
50 Years of Photographing Hollywood: The Hurrell Style
by Whitney Stine
Websites
