From: panlilio@acs.ucalgary.ca (Victor P. Panlilio)
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Summary: Why We Photograph 'Slim' Women
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 92 17:40:08 GMT
Expires: Mon, 30 Nov 1992 05:00:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta
Followup-To: alt.supermodels

>In article <1992Nov5.170627.20310@cs.nott.ac.uk> rji@trellis.cs.nott.ac.uk (Rob Ingram) writes:
>>
>>The problem is that most of the images we see in advertising are of
>>women who are really too thin for their height but this is portrayed
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Depends. Have you met and worked with models, by any chance? I
have, and the curious thing is, they don't seem to be too thin.

>>as an ideal. This is difficult to achieve for most women and so this
>>leads to obsessive behavior and eating disorders.

What people do when they look at pictures is THEIR business. I am
not going to fall for the inane PC line about image censorship
just because some fool thinks he or she should look like what
they see in pictures. We might as well have thought control. I
for one don't believe that people are enslaved by social custom
to the extent that they are *incapable* of making up their own
minds about what is and is not good for them, but it seems that
PC-thinkers would have us believe that mere mortals are mental
midgets and must therefore be told how they should think and act.

Lib then responds to Rob Ingram:

>Odd. I thought that the reason all the models were too slim for their
>height was that such people photograph better, not that Madison
	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And so I (Victor) add to the debate:

AHA! Now here's someone who knows what it's all about! Okey-dokey
folks, now I can tell you why photographers and designers and ad
people like to work with women who are *willow-wand* slim -- the
camera lies! It makes 'normal' women look heavy, and *I* should
know, because I have to resort to lighting and posing and styling
tricks to make someone look as slim in a photograph as she does
in person! So it's not a plot to make women try to be anorexic,
but a quirk of optically trying to represent in a two-dimensional
medium the three-dimensional reality of the human form. When I
was doing an outdoor bathing suit shoot this summer, my model,
who is 5'10" and 135 lbs., actually looked HEAVY in some of her
pictures even though she was wearing a French-cut black Body
Glove one-piece suit and looked perfectly fine in person; so when
I studied the slides afterwards I realized that I had to pose her
a certain way in order to emphasize her long limbs and slender
figure (as I said, in person she was just stunning, but the
camera sees things differently, my friends!). So when I had a
chance to photograph someone who's 6 feet tall and weighs 125
lbs., I had no problems getting her to LOOK slim in pictures,
even though in person she does not look anorexic or shriveled
(certainly not after you see her in a skintight black dress!).

If you look closely at some of the pictures in the 1993 Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit calendar, you'll see that the models have
rotated their hips a certain way in order to appear slimmer. As I
said before, the camera sees *differently* from the human eye.

Anyone who knows figure photography basics should realize this!

So, for all you gender conspiracy theorists out there.....

Phhhbbbbbtttttttt!!!!!! (with lots of extra spit!)

Victor 8^)

(who's anxiously awaiting the pix from last night's lingerie
fashion show -- four glorious rolls of 36-exposures each, of
good-looking men AND women cavorting onstage in their undies)

P.S. How come no one criticized the cave-painters and other
creators of representations of the human form (the Venus of
Willendorph figurine comes to mind) for being politically
incorrect, hmmm? Let's drop the PC BS once and for all, okay?

*chuckle*