Esther Honig "Before and After"

[6cdeniseclaire]

www.estherhonig.com/



This is the website of Esther Honig, a young journalist who is a human interest reporter. 
W while back, i stumbled on an article on Aol (I know, lame, who uses that anymore?) about a project Honig conducted. 
In this project, Honig photographed herself, bare-faced and inquired different amateur and pro photo retouchers to simply take the photo and "make her beautiful." 
Honig has 20 or so results and many of them vary, one even photoshopping her into a traditional Muslim hijab. 
This project opened my eyes to  the whole concept of beauty- 
No one's conception of beauty will ever be the same as another. 

As a counterpart to this, Priscilla Yuki Willson conducted a similar experience but expanded the canvas to her bust, showing us that many see the body in different ways. 
In my own opinion, I want to say that beauty and looks don't matter, but in the end, I formed opinions of which I thought were the "prettiest"- If that is even a thing. 


I want to see your reactions to this and hopefully find what beauty means to you as an individual, whether it be physical or otherwise. 

Attachments:

[6mkaira]

I saw this a while back and I thought it was super interesting too. I feel like Photoshop has always been a symbol for unattainable beauty standards, but this project really puts that into perspective by showing what traits and characteristics are valued in certain countries. However, I also think it is important to realize that these pictures don't necessarily depict the beauty standards of the country as a whole, but are significantly impacted by the personal opinions that the respective designer unconsciously reflected in their image. For example, the United States image surprised me a lot in that it isn't what I would've expected; it looks nothing like any image you'd see in a magazine or fashion ad here, but I guess that must've been a conscious decision on the part of the designer. I definitely still found it intriguing, though, I guess because it varied so much from the other images. To be honest I also found some images to be "prettier" than others, which I wish didn't happen... but I think that's more of a comment on societal influence rather than personal criticality.

[6cjanelle]

I found this experiment very interesting and for a number of reasons. The biggest reason was, when I stumbled upon this on facebook, I immediately wanted to see how many countries would lighten up Esther Honig and Priscilla Wilson's skin when they asked to be made "beautiful." I had always known that one part of the white privledge is the world's perception of beauty. I remember seeing a picture on tumblr that said "You have been brainwashed into thinking European featues are the epitome of beauty." This quote perfectly represents what I discovered in the pictures. A lot of them had been slimmed down, lightened up. She wasn't just a Blasian turned European, she was a product of years of suppression of non-caucasian females. When you are a hispanic woman, or an african-american, or an asian, watching light skinned girls on TV, in magazines, plastered on the sides of buildings and posters all around you, its hard to relate to how that makes YOU beautiful. That's what beautiful about PhotoShop because it gives you a way to reach that unattainable beauty. However, "beautiful" should not be "white". Not that caucasian women aren't beautiful, because they are. But to flip through fifty pages of caucasian girls before stumbling upon a black one is a problem. None of the fixes to Wilson's person was that her skin was too light or her hair was too tame. No country stretched her skin for a more veluptuous look to her. There was not one who left Priscilla the same. She was changed and pushed to fit every other stantard. I agree with what you two say about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder but I believe many of the beholders have been made to believe that the white, stick-thin figured, long haired girl is what is beautiful. I wish it wasn't like that and that someone had decided to send her picture back and tell her "No, we can't, because you are beautiful the way you are."