It seems that I haven’t been writing much lately. Not sure why that is — a lack of time? Of inspiration? Or maybe my creative efforts have just been more visual. I appear to have downloaded a trial version of Photoshop, and it just makes getting caught up on image editing that much more fun.

The result is few words, but many images. But they’re each worth a thousand words or so, which makes it the same as writing. Right?

Bah. It looks like the end result will be the purchase of Adobe Creative Suite 5. I am currently ignoring the fact that it’s not what I would call “affordably priced”.

All photos by Mr. Topp. Click them to visit on Flickr.

Prior to getting knocked up and having a baby pulled forcibly from her uterus, my dear, sweet Karen was an avid runner. It began with a decision to run a half-marathon, and turned into an actual love of putting one foot in front of the other at a reasonably quick place.

Pregnancy ended the regular running. Recovery and a daughter to look after kept it away after the pregnancy. But now? Now she is ready to get back in it.

It was time for new running gear.

A family trip was taken to the sports shop. Karen tried on new running gear, while Maggie and I explored. What would Maggie like? What would she be interested in?

Rugby? Soccer? Balls ignored.
Cricket? Tennis? No interest.
Darts? I kept her away from the darts.

Ping pong?

She grabbed hold of the paddle, and would not let it go. It had to be forcibly removed. Maggie, it seems, is bound and determined to be the greatest ping ponger of her generation.

I read a lot of blogs. Some number of these are photography blogs. Amongst the myriad of topics that appear on photography blogs are those on manipulating photographs using various types of software. Some of these are reviews of new products, some of them are guides on how to use techniques and tools.

For the most part, I do not mind these — even when they produce results that I dislike or would not seek to reproduce. This happens quite often as it is already established that I am not a big fan of photoshop.

But over the holidays I read the following from this review of Portrait Professional 10:

[One of the most important enhancements in version 10 is] Greatly improved and extended face sculpting. Portrait Professional is the only commercial photo editing software that is trained in human appearance, using literally thousands of photographs of people. Version 10 has been greatly enhanced both with a new learning algorithm and more training. The result is that the (subtle or not so subtle) reshaping of the face towards beauty is far better and more natural with a greater range than it was before, and works with a greater range of faces.

So the software will perform a mangling of your model’s face. Here’s the example:

While beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, this girl looks much better (to me) in the “before” photo than the “after” photo. And this brings me to my biggest Photoshop pet peeve — facial reconstruction.

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we can understand many, many uses of photoshop. We understand erasing things from photos, fixing skin blemishes, even giving somebody a fake tan. We can understand trying to make somebody look thinner than they are in real life.

But adjusting a person’s face? We don’t get it.

First, why take a photo of somebody’s face, if that’s not the face you’re looking for?
Second, why would you be destroying the beauty that they do possess by normalizing it?

Perhaps we here at the Big Bad Blog are weird in that we like people to look a little bit different from one another. That different shaped features suit different hairstyles, fashions and body types. That strong jaws and weak jaws, round faces and heart-shaped faces, are elements of the photos that we are trying to take, rather than merely aspects of faces that need to be photoshopped towards some generic ideal.

Weird or not, I find real faces to be more beautiful — and certainly more interesting — than those that have been modified by photoshop (although careful, deliberate and professional jobs can be outstanding). Certainly, I cannot expect that a face-reshaping algorithm will really ever move a person’s features closer to “beauty” in any meaningful way.

Moreover, I think that finding the right person makes for much better photos than trying to manipulate their face into being correct afterwards. This goes moreso for faces than for pretty much anything else that can be photoshopped.

And most certainly, I prefer the real redhead.

Ever see photographs of potential holiday destinations and think “that looks too good to be true”? Of course it is. The beach is not deserted, and the women do not all look like professional models. There’s also this newfangled “photoshop” thing you might have heard about.

Hotel booking website Oyster goes and takes their own photographs of the hotels you can book from their site. And then they compare them side-by-side with the hotel’s own promotional materials in their blog. Fantastic, insightful and (often) funny.

(via My Modern Metropolis.)

Religious? Like going out and saving souls? Be warned — it could be bad for your back.

Finally, old people like it when young people are dumb. But that’s all the time, right? Kids these days …