Right out of the box, unretouched and touched up. So no, my forehead isn’t that smooth. I have this software that gives one smooth, porcelain like complexion. Gave myself some color, warmed the background and voila… a more presentable me. A friend of mine calls it the spa treatment. Thing about digital is that it is really quite harsh as it reveals more information than most people like to see. Film with its grain was much more forgiving. A lot of older TV talking heads lost their jobs when television went digital high definition. Revealed too many wrinkles. I have always told folks that photographs are illusions. The notion that photographs don’t lie is the first lie. In this day and age, with AI coming on strong, no photographic image is truthful, even journalistic imagery. I never cared about presenting the truth and felt it wasn’t my job anyway. In that way I would think of my work as illustrations. Just my way of seeing things. When I photograph people, I want to make them look good, thus the spa treatment. It is a little white lie that think most of us are willing to live with.
