September 1, 2006

Keeping It Real

The other day, I was looking through a magazine that gave tips on how to improve portrait and physique photos using Adobe’s Photoshop program. I’m a photographer and I use Photoshop daily, so I thought it would be a good idea to check out what they were saying.

Some of the tips they had were good – how to get more natural-looking skin tones, etc. – but some of them startled me. For example, there was one section about how to change the body of a pear-shaped person into that of a fitness star. First, they distorted the person’s appearance by making their waist smaller and shoulders wider. Then they showed little tricks to enhance and even fake muscular definition. With programs like Photoshop, you can even add a tan. The results were amazing actually – someone who looked as if they hardly worked out at all suddenly had a beach-type body that many people would envy. It was impressive but, of course, it wasn’t real.

However, this kind of digital trickery is used everywhere today. I simply have to look around the magazine rack to see heavily edited pictures of actors, models, and supposed fitness stars on many of the covers. Some of the photos still look quite natural, but some have been so heavily edited that the people no longer look real.

Perhaps for some magazines heavy editing like this may be fine, but I think for any kind of fitness-based magazine, the notion of digitally enhancing a person’s physique is misleading for readers. For example, imagine looking at a picture of someone who you think is in good shape and is an inspiration to you. Later on, though, you find out that they’re not really in that shape at all – their condition is only the product of a clever Photoshop user and not the result of a special workout program or diet regime. When you read these magazines, you expect what you see in the pictures and read about in the text to be real, not fake.

Unfortunately, much of what you see and read isn’t real, and in the world of fitness-based publishing, fake physiques have been passed off on the public as real ones since long before Photoshop came around. For example, over the years I’ve read countless articles about people who purportedly created their great-looking bodies through safe, natural training and dietary methods, when the truth of the matter is that the splendid shape they created was achieved primarily through the use of illegal drugs – I’m talking steroids, stimulants, and other such things. So, one day the person looks like everyone else, but weeks later they have a fully transformed body that someone who trains naturally couldn’t attain in months, let alone years.

Drugs can have that kind of effect, and many magazines have been passing off these artificial bodies as natural ones for years in the hope that you buy into the notion that what they attained was through natural methods so that you buy their magazine. And many supplement companies have been using drugged-up people to sell their natural supplements for just as long. In fact, this kind of thing has been going on since the ‘60s – when steroids became commonplace – although most magazine publishers and supplement company owners won’t tell you that. Instead, most would rather sell you a lie rather than rely on letting you know what’s real. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that some will also use fake, touched-up photos to further promote their products.

At SeriousAboutFitness.com we adhere to certain standards, and one of those standards I call "keeping it real." The only photos worth publishing are photos of real people, not digitally enhanced ones. During photos sessions I will work with lighting, and in postproduction we often have to tweak the colors to make them right, but the person must be in great shape before the camera starts clicking – we’re not about to create their shape after the fact. As a result, what you see is really what you get, and the models can be truly proud, since they do really look that way. This doesn’t just count for this site, but for the SAFCoverGirls.com, GirlsofSAF.com, and other sites we operate as well. I’m the chief photographer for all of these sites, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those women look great.

I also believe the only results worth writing about are real results that happen through hard work and by using proper training methods and sound nutritional programs. Frankly, I just don’t care what people accomplish using drugs, and I don’t believe most readers do either, since most people stay away from them. Besides, drug users tend to lose their bodies just as fast as they gained them, and they take tremendous health risks while doing so. Instead, I believe that most readers want to learn about what’s real – what works – since these are the kind of gains that last and have long-term health benefits.

Photoshop has lots of features that can help any photographer achieve better results; however, the last thing that should be on anyone’s mind is artificially creating an in-shape person from one who’s out of shape. And drugs can be a tremendous help for someone who’s ill, but they’re not to be used to get into shape. Looking great and being healthy is something real, not something you create with a computer. Furthermore, it’s not something that comes from a needle or a pill.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

• Go Back