Photoshop has become a symbol of our global society’s unobtainable standards for beauty. Not too long ago, journalist Esther Honig requested several photoshop experts to ’retouch’ a plain photograph of her in line with the standards of their society for what constituted a ’beautiful’ woman. The results were revealing. Out of all the images she received, it was clear that not one culture had an identical understanding of what ’beauty’ meant.
We suggest taking a look — this is truly fascinating. Some of these might seem bizarre to you, some might seem ordinary, but overall you’ll be impressed.
The original
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Chile
Germany
Greece
India
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Kenya
Morocco
Pakistan
The Philippines
Romania
Serbia
Sri Lanka
Britain
Ukraine
USA
Vietnam
Venezuela
The results of this project so impressed Esther that she became obsessed with finding out about the different standards of beauty which exist around the world. ’Photoshop allows any of us to become “beautiful”’, says Esther, ’but if we compare our own understanding of that word to others in a global context, we see that beauty is essentially an illusive concept.’
