Today the Kardashians are a multi million-dollar empire. I am pretty sure at this point they make money just for breathing and I swear 98% of the time I turn on E! one of their 50 different reality shows is on. For many, they are considered “American royalty,” but in all seriousness how in the hell are they famous? I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to that. I am pretty sure their family only became famous after Kris capitalized on her daughter's sex tape with Ray J... klassy.. and well, smart. Ok, sorry, I got a little off topic BUT I bring up the Kardashians because a couple of weeks ago the lovely Khloe did a shoot for our magazine which provoked me to touch upon an important issue in the publishing world. Photo shoots are actually one of my favorite parts of my job, and I have a weird love/hate relationship with the Kardashians, so I was pretty stoked. I like that no one in this family is considered society’s criteria of “skinny.” They are curvy girls, but why are they always airbrushed in photographs to appear much thinner? Are their real bodies not good enough for magazines? I think this might be the thing about women’s magazines that disappoints me the most, you hire some of the best photographers in the world, have the best possible lighting and equipment available, and an amazing "glam" crew, can’t you just leave the photo alone?! At the shoot I was checking out some of the images with the photo assistant, Khloe looked bomb (2.5+ hours of hair and makeup doesn't hurt), but then the assistant actually started editing the photos on the spot. Doing all kinds of crazy stuff I didn’t even know was possible like putting an eye from one photo on a different photo and shading the back of her legs, uh what? I think that's when I began to realize what a big issue this really is. Photoshopping has gotten so excessive that models and celebrities don’t even have pores anymore, let alone any fat on their bodies. Every day young impressionable girls are looking at these magazines wondering why they don’t look like the women they see in all the editorials and advertisements. It doen't surprise me that one in four people are depressed about their bodies in America. We have these images of perfection all around us that we want to live up to and despite that many of us aren’t blind to the idea of airbrushing- it still affects us. At the shoot I was bopping around to a digitalized electronic remix of one of MJ's classics with Khloe’s makeup artist, he turned to me and said “When something is perfect it doesn’t seem real or raw. I miss those imperfections.” Despite that he was referring to his hatred toward the new trend in house music, it was a really bold statement that struck me as relevant to this issue. These photos aren’t real; in fact there is really nothing real about them. Back in 2007 when Redbook was under fire for heavily airbrushing Faith Hill, the editor went on the Today show in response and said, "In the end, they're not really photographs. They're images." Personally, I think she looked better before going under the digital knife, wrinkles, pores and all, but apparently the photo wasn't good enough.
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