In the original New Yorker article, he talks about what a challenge it was to make the models look attractive. Now he’s saying that all he did was remove dust and do color correction?

The only thing that surprises me is that
anyone was naive enough to believe that there never had been any photoshopping in the first place.

Statement from Dove about The New Yorker Article

9 May 2008, 4:45pm

Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.

The “real women” ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand’s advertising agency, from start to finish and the women’s bodies were not digitally altered.

Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr. Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty. There was an understanding between Dove and Ms. Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched – the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.

“Let’s be perfectly clear – Pascal does all kinds of work – but he is primarily a printer – and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching and there was not,” confirmed Annie Leibovitz, commenting on the ProAgecampaign.

Mr. Dangin responded, “The recent article published by The New Yorker incorrectly implies that I retouched the images in connection with the Dove “real women” ad. I only worked on the Dove ProAge campaign taken by Annie Leibovitz and was directed only to remove dust and do color correction – both the integrity of the photographs and the women’s natural beauty were maintained.”

I suppose I should have been more clear in the section about using models that are real, but brevity is key here so I didn’t go into a long discourse on airbrushing and photoshopping. I’ve never worked with an art director or designer worth their salt that doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time on the look of an ad. This could mean hours of kerning type or perhaps airbrushing a wrinkle from a model’s blouse or manipulating a shadow for more visual impact. Airbrushing does not mean that the look of the model is changed, it might just mean that the photo was “cleaned up” to remove distracting elements like a stray hair or a slight glare off a shiny fabric.

I’m sure the images in the Dove ads had some slight airbrushing done. I honestly would be surprised if they didn’t. Raw photography is seldom fit to go straight to print. My point was and still is the actually appearance of the models was not changed. If you saw one of these women in an ad and then ran into them on the street, you’d be able to instantly recognize them. This much cannot be said in most instances with the heavy makeup, wigs and extensive photo editing that takes place. A model ultimately looks nothing like his or her true self once the photo has reached completion.

Again, as Janis pointed out, the images of the Dove models may have been slightly airbrushed, but not to the extent that their appearance was altered. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have pronounced freckles, obvious rolls of fat, gaps in their teeth or wrinkles in their skin. If you don’t believe me, watch the ProAge Ad on YouTube. These are women that look just like you and me.

And for the record, I neither pay the Beauty Brains nor accept compensation from the Beauty Brains. They tap my knowledge from time to time to discuss advertising trends and like it or not, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty is a huge trend away from the norms we see in the beauty advertising industry slight airbrushing included.

Telling your daughter that pretty is on the inside while she sees you hating your fat, disgusting, ugly thighs and blaming them for causing global warming, mass extinction, and outbreaks of ebola … well, your daughter will know what you really think no matter what you say to her. We need to work on ourselves before we start working on our daughters.

I guess I just get tired of the blaming of the industry. Women fall for that junk hook, line, and sinker. Women have no one to blame but themselves for it. I used to make dozens of arguments about how it was the corporate, patriarchal, industrial blah-blah’s fault, but you know what? It’s women’s fault. If we really wanted to stop that garbage, it’d stop cold.