What is your relationship with water? (thunderstorms, lakes, rivers, swimming, boating, sprinklers, etc.) Is it good or bad? What do you think caused this? – Amy
Thunderstorms – I love and highly respect them. I enjoy the intense weather when I feel safe. Daniel likes to have the windows open and stand on the porch and that’s just too much for me. I won’t let Drew play on the porch during a storm. But I absolutely love pouring rain and thunder and watching the lightning dance across the sky.
Lakes, rivers, swimming, boating – We didn’t wear bathing suits in our Fundy circles while growing up so I never learned to swim and generally felt uncomfortable around water. We took an occasional boat ride and waded into the river (in our dresses) if we found ourselves near one but I never felt at ease.
Now that I can make my own choice about a bathing suit, I find that I adore being in water and in the past few years I’ve enjoyed being in the pool or at the lake but I still don’t know how to swim so it’s been low-key.
At some point, I suppose Drew and I both will take swimming lessons. I feel like it’s my duty to make sure my kid can swim but I have to get my nerve up first.
Sprinklers, etc – Who in the world DOESN’T love sprinklers?? The splash pad at Independence Lake (about ten minutes from our place) is a favorite spot and I probably enjoy it just as much as my five-year-old.
When was the last time you got into a heated argument? What’s your conflict style? Avoid, attack, win at all costs, there are no winners? – Kassie
It was pretty recent. My conflict style is LOUD and PASSIONATE and WE ARE GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW. I hate when arguments need to end with “well, I suppose we had a miscommunication.” I like it when someone loses and someone wins. I LIKE TO WIN.
Insert maniacal laughter here.
But I can’t hold a grudge at all so it pains me incredibly if arguments last longer than a few hours.
Keep It Real Campaign: Each of us has been personally impacted by photoshopped beauty. Whether it’s through actually consuming the content in these magazines ourselves, or knowing the influence it has over a loved one, we all have a wake-up call to give the industry. Use your voice and write down why you want the industry to “keep it real” in magazines, then: post it on your blog and on our Facebook event wall so we can share it! Tweet it to the magazines and post the link on their Facebook pages! – Keep It Real
I think advertisements are designed to mostly reflect an ideal life-style so when impressionable young people (for the most part) begin to suffer depression when glancing through fashion magazines, yes, something needs to change.
Maybe they need to learn how to identify real photos from photoshopped ones? Or stop reading those kinds of magazines? Or perhaps our culture needs to begin valuing “natural” and “normal” instead of Kim Kardashian. Perhaps knowledge is the best weapon at this point.
My favorite commentary on photoshop is from Tina Fey:
You can barely recognize yourself with the amount of digital correction. They’ve taken out your knuckles and given you baby hands. The muscular calves that you’re generally very proud of are slimmed to the bone. And what’s with the eyes? They always get it wrong under the eyes. In an effort to remove dark circles they take out any depth, and your face looks like it was drawn on a paper plate. You looked forward to them taking out your chicken pox scars and broken blood vessels, but how do you feel when they erase part of you that is perfectly good?
We have now entered the debate over America’s most serious and pressing issue: Photoshop.
A lot of women are outraged by the use of Photoshop in magazine photos. I say a lot of women because I have yet to meet one man who could give a fat turd about the topic. Not even a gay man.
I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society… unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.
Do I think Photoshop is being used excessively? Yes. I saw Madonna’s Louis Vuitton ad and honestly, at first glance, I thought it was Gwen Stefani’s baby.
Do I worry about overly retouched photos giving women unrealistic expectations and body image issues? I do. I think that we will soon see a rise in anorexia in women over seventy. Because only people over seventy are fooled by Photoshop. Only your great-aunt forwards you an image of Sarah Palin holding a rifle and wearing an American-flag bikini and thinks it’s real. Only your uncle Vic sends a photo of Barack Obama wearing a hammer and sickle T-shirt and has to have it explained to him that somebody faked that with the computer.
People have learned how to spot it. Just like how everyone learned to spot fake boobs—look for the upper-arm meat. If If there’s no upper-arm meat, the breasts are fake. Unlike breast implants, which can mess up your health, digital retouching is relatively harmless. As long as we all know it’s fake, it’s no more dangerous to society than a radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
Photoshop is just like makeup. When it’s done well it looks great, and when it’s overdone you look like a crazy asshole. Unfortunately, most people don’t do it well. I find, the fancier the fashion magazine is, the worse the Photoshop. It’s as if they are already so disgusted that a human has to be in the clothes, they can’t stop erasing human features.
“Why can’t we accept the human form as it is?” screams no one. I don’t know why, but we never have. That’s why people wore corsets and neck stretchers and powdered wigs.
If you’re going to expend energy being mad about Photoshop, you’ll also have to be mad about earrings. No one’s ears are that sparkly! They shouldn’t have to be! You’ll have to get mad about oil paintings—those people didn’t really look like that! I for one am furious that people are allowed to turn sideways in photographs! Why can’t we accept a woman’s full width?! I won’t rest until people are only allowed to be photographed facing front under a fluorescent light.
It should absolutely be mandatory for magazines to credit the person who performed the Photoshop work, just like they do the makeup artist and the stylist… in very tiny white print on white paper.
