Exposing Victorian Influencers Who 'Facetuned' Their Photos. (Photo Manipulation was EVERYWHERE 🤯)

[@bernadettebanner]

Go to nordvpn.com/bernadette or use code bernadette to get a 2-year plan plus a bonus gift with a huge discount.

[@__wm_]

This was fascinating! A little healthy scepticism is no bad thing, but it is really interesting to see what was a 'no go' for some (laughs in heavily freckled). One thing though, I think your link is a bit borked- worked fine once I changed it to /bernadette though!

[@bernadettebanner]

Thank you! It is fixed! 😁

[@keelyclevenger]

@@bernadettebanner thank you Bernadette. Completely fascinating. I am going to check out some photographs right now.

[@MrsBrit1]

I've found something suggesting the woman with the dog is Valeska Suratt, who was a former Gibson girl who apparently turned actress and vamp! She may have also been called an empress of fashion!

[@dwolfyt_7300]

Hi Bernadette, thank you for the informational video!!! Could you do a video on what Pregnant Women wore and a little more history on Pregnant Women? Thank you, bye🙂

[@kvan335]

In portraiture, they used this brilliant filter called 'I'm paying you to make me look good'

[@GoGoSachiko]

😂😂 and in old oil paintings it was “if I don’t look flawless, off with your head!!”

[@cynicismpiee]

@@GoGoSachiko a good example of that is king henry viii's famous portrait of him standing like 🧍🏻‍♂️ in front of what appears to be a tapestry and a curtain

[@GoGoSachiko]

@@cynicismpiee lol yes!! Only, for whatever reason, Henry the VIII was a “desirable/hot” man based on modern representations (Tudor’s TV show or any other movie). If his portrait was an exaggeration, then what did he really look like?!

[@cynicismpiee]

@@GoGoSachiko he was morbidly obese, ridden with ulcers, wrinkly, just generally ill-looking-

[@GoGoSachiko]

@@cynicismpiee 😂😂 and still managed multiple wives because he was king.

[@ellenmarch3095]

My grandmother's picture from when she was twenty was flawless. She looked gorgeous. I told her that once, and she said, "it's all fake, dear. I had terrible acne. They touched up the photo." 😂🤦‍♀️😍❤

[@maggiefindmusic]

That's so cute of her 😍

[@therealfinnaspring8585]

I've always wanted an old photo like that because of how perfect they look lol

[@weliveinasociety4629]

My mom would show us portrait photos of her as a kid in the 70s, and if you look closet you could see that they painted it to make her cheeks rosy, teeth straighter and gave her lashes.

[@jocelynecupcake]

aaw ^u^ how sweet! It'd love to see the before and after photos. If you have an instagram or tumblr, do you think you could post the photo?

[@maggiefindmusic]

@@jocelynecupcake I love that idea!

[@mmelanoma]

Occam's razor: well, they probably retouched their pictures Modern society: well they obviously went through surgery to remove a couple of ribs! Because that was so much easier at that time

[@ValeriePallaoro]

Bloody nice words!!!

[@gothicgirlfriend7375]

Some people really are shaped like that though. I've been asked if I've had ribs taken out and I haven't. All I've had done is a chest job. I'm afraid to type the actual word. All my words get flagged.

[@bluegirl278]

@Gothic Girlfriend some people are shaped similar to the ideal naturally or in your case, close to naturally since you had your chest done, but no one is naturally the unrealistic ideal. No one naturally has an 18 inch waist, massive chest, super wide hips, big round butt, no lines, no tummy, etc. It’s just not a human combination. You can have some of these traits together or have a less drastic version but no one is ideal because it isn’t real.

[@NotEvenOneShit]

TBF that's also hyperbole towards modern society. Very few people actually believe that ribs were being removed. They more frequently believe that it is the result of extreme corsetry which is also inaccurate but much more reasonable to believe.

[@bluegirl278]

@@aw3346 Again, no one has all of the requirements. Many have a few or are close to the ideal but some of the criteria are contradictory or not physically possible without surgery on their own, let alone paired with all the other criteria.

[@MorganDonner]

Oh man, nothing quite like seeing how impossible the originals were to make one suddenly understand why one's own historical outfits never look *quite* right.

[@acrylicgodoy]

It makes sense now! I always wondered why period costuming looks so much bulkier than the sleek photos and paintings in historical documents!

[@ragnkja]

@@acrylicgodoy Even without the retouching, you also have to remember that portraits are posed and the dresses arranged _just so,_ and that they don’t stay that way if the subject moves.

[@bernadettebanner]

YEP researching this took approximately 25 weights off of my shoulders. 👀

[@kitt3526]

This is actually so true hahah

[@tassey]

And before photography there was painting. My husband did portraits and I can tell you that pounds are removed. He learned that he was not supposed to paint what he saw, but what the people commissioning the painting saw or wanted to see. So ALL historical costume images are dubious as portrayals of reality.

[@lyladepaula3291]

There's a lot to take away from this video but the thing that is standing out to me is the realization that the term "Gibson girl" belongs in the same group as the terms "e-girl" "insta baddie" and etc

[@maitesoto1953]

As someone in another comment said: Gibsoncore

[@Hanarchyreigns]

VSCO girl

[@NeoNovastar]

LMAOOO you're so right

[@roseberry-nj2ux]

And that group is named cringeworthy

[@ashleygibson2342]

When VSCO girls were a real big thing I made that same realization. It took me a minute to process the whole idea tbh. Humans are funny.

[@Lario64]

It makes me so sad to see that freckles were seen as such an ugly thing, even until quite recently. Ever since I was little I have always found freckles to be gorgeous and I was incredibly jealous of people who had them. I hope that everyone who reads this who has freckles is proud of them and finds them beautiful!

[@ThePigeonBrain]

Lol, thanks. I think maybe the stigma against freckles originates in smallpox. With so many people with scarred faces running around, a perfectly unblemished face became the height of beauty. I doubt people saw freckles as THAT terrible, but the association was there, and especially on sepia photos, it would be difficult to tell the difference between freckles and scarring.

[@Roguechan]

Yes!! I have no freckles myself, but I think they are lovely, too! :D

[@danone2414]

it has always been like that

[@fitnessfeverpt]

@@ThePigeonBrain I believe it was because the well to do women didn't need to be outside in the sun to work and therefore anyone with freckles was lowly poor rif raf.

[@ThePigeonBrain]

@@fitnessfeverpt Oh yeah, that was probably also a factor

[@rodittis]

I can see how the Victorians wouldn’t consider it “cheating” to retouch photos because think about what preceded photography : painted portraits. Even today everybody assumes a painted portrait is the “kindest” interpretation of the subject. Victorians probably understood implicitly that the photograph was an idealized version of themselves.

[@afilm6262]

This is such a good point! I think the contrast we see today is that influencers are selling authenticity and the appearance of having an intimate and real relationship with their audience whereas in reality it’s a whole curated production.

[@orlock20]

It's probable that Victorians mostly used photographs and paintings for themselves rather than tying to influence the masses which is what newspapers were there for.

[@JEBavido]

My local art museum had a show one time that I can't remember anything about (Sorry, Philbrook!) except the wise advice to note how all the country scenes that depicted workers going about their labors showed all them with clean feet. This was a show of many artists, so it was apparently common to skip the filth in country scenes through several centuries.

[@PanicMerchant]

The best filter in history is paying someone money to make you look good

[@chaosPneumatic]

This assumes however that everyone was fully informed and "in the know" about this. Education was pretty lacking back then and not everybody could afford a portrait or photo. I wouldn't be surprised if the practice of retouching was really only known to the more educated upper-classes of that generation. A working-class person could have looked at a propaganda photo of the Queen and have no reason not to assume complete accuracy.

[@little1gili]

My godfather was a professional photographer in the USSR, and he'd manually retouch all the negatives of portraits he took to remove blemishes etc. He was really good at it. Nowadays, he does it all in Photoshop, obviously, but he still knows how to do it and will do it for fun now and then. Retouching on negatives is a super fascinating skill.

[@LadyMinaMasters]

That sounds really cool.

[@OddlyElly]

That's hecking awesome!

[@annafrimpongarhin6771]

He should do a documentary/master class. It's too fascinating to be lost in history

[@firestarterri]

@@annafrimpongarhin6771 Excellent suggestion! I would most definitely be interested!>

[@MartiasMuses]

Wow! So cool :) My grandad has some old photos that were colored in and that was apparently also quite common practice in our area.

[@kathleenritter7686]

"There is no new thing under the sun" - In my art and theatre classes we spent a whole lot of time discussing how the Greek's represented the best in people, while their successors the Romans were much more comfortable with imperfection and "ugliness." It's not that every Greek person 3000 years ago was wandering around as a LITERAL Adonis, but that the Greek artists wanted to show the beauty that the human form ~could~ achieve. Greek playwrights were very concerned about how people ~should~ behave, and the consequences if they didn't. The Romans, meanwhile, slapped crooked noses and too-close eyes onto their statues bc that's how people actually look. Their literature has way more people getting away with bad behaviour - it's played for laughs. People are people, and we like to pretend to have perfect skin. *shrugs*

[@camilledvorak7151]

Remember painted photos? My paternal grandfather told the photographer the wrong color for my grandmother's eyes. She was pissed off about that until the day she died.

[@GoodPersonTestWebsite]

Utoh 😅

[@heidibrandenburg95]

Yes, they did that to my senior picture from high school 1973!

[@kenziehurlock]

My grandmother has a painted photograph of her from high school in the 50's.

[@ValeriePallaoro]

Wow ... yup! He didn't have the game saver that we do with Elton John's words "I don't remember what colour they are; but yours are the prettiest eyes I've ever seen"

[@wolvie1618]

If she was so butthurt about it, why didn't she have it fixed? 🤣

[@KatieRoseHere]

I've always assumed the lack of facial "flaws" was due to the camera's lack of ability to pick it up. I did know about the body Photoshop though. The more you know.

[@chelseal654]

Interestingly, the large format cameras could capture so much detail that they are still used to capture archeological excavations today. The technology is still superior to the modern digital camera.

[@lucyheartfilia9077]

Same! Just though technology wasn’t advanced enough to pick up detail!

[@KatieRoseHere]

@@chelseal654 That's interesting! Thanks for the fact

[@raraavis7782]

Same. This was eye-opening, indeed.

[@Wingedshadowwolf]

Yeah, I thought that too!

[@laughingcoyote8789]

Thank you Bernadette for this. For all of us "stout" ladies out there that look at those Edwardian outfits and say, "I'm never going to look like that" it's good to know that they didn't either!

[@littleblackcar]

Omg seriously. I collect vintage sewing patterns and so many women lament that they don’t have a “vintage” figure because they don’t look like the pattern images. Vintage women didn’t look like the pattern images, either! That’s girdles and artistic license! My family albums are full of stout-waisted women just like you’d see today.

[@herzkine]

Bad thing is early Film shows people normally were fitter then than us netflix binggewatchers. :-D

[@bluegirl278]

@herzkine even wary videos were able to be alerted in someways. Plus, they still had the allusion their clothes provided, lighting tricks, makeup, etc.

[@angelwhispers2060]

Honestly I am quite reassured by the level of padding that even the very small Bernadette has to go through in her Victorian corset video. That even my barrel-chested self with the right corset and padding could achieve a desirable look. Unfortunately I am still trapped in the in drudgery of finishing University. After which I will be making myself some corsets and some clothing with appropriate padding

[@angelwhispers2060]

@@bluegirl278 especially in the era of black-and-white film that's basically where face contouring first became a thing because it was so easy to trick the old black-and-white cameras to look however you wanted

[@whereisannah]

Really puts into perspective that moment in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth’s aunt asks her if the miniature of Mr Darcy is ‘a fair likeness’. From this I assume that people were aware of some artistic liberties

[@cynthiabasil8356]

The most famous painting I think of is of Anne of Cleves

[@phoenixgate007]

Excellent point.

[@athetopofmylungs]

@@cynthiabasil8356 that said, based on the fact that Holbein remained employed by Henry, her portrait cant have been too far off

[@dracofirex]

Oh yeah, it was common for painters to be overpaid or coerced into flattering (or overtly changing features of) their subjects. Like Cynthia said here, betrothal portraits were particularly sus.

[@imathumb]

​@@athetopofmylungs Henry really needed those skillz for himself 😜

[@gwendolynrobinson3900]

Bernadette saying words like "selfie" seems almost anachronistic

[@lonestarr1490]

Yeah. Should be more like lithograselphy

[@sugasnaps]

same with the word "sus", lmao

[@acecat2798]

Look, it's natural for a time traveler to have an eclectic vocabulary, no need to judge. ;)

[@sharonfleshman6961]

IRL is the one that struck me.

[@batterybroken]

Right?!

[@alyssaholliyoung4319]

I genuinely appreciate that when she was talking about how obvious it is that you've retouched your shape if you're standing in front of a fence or something detailed, she demonstrated on a photo of herself instead of taking the easy approach and inserting an image mocking someone else.

[@LixiaWinter]

Ok but that lad looked absolutely cute with his freckles

[@jocelynecupcake]

IKR he's fine. but it was considered a "sissy" think back then though. Personally, I think guys are quite cute with freckles but back then they thought it was "unmanly" or something. The thing is, even back then I think there were still girls and women who thought it was cute too, but society made it seem like it wasn't.

[@goobertron9099]

He is!!!! I want to give him a hug

[@noodlesnook]

@@goobertron9099 sameeee

[@adeaoud3404]

I want to give him a hug as well! He looks adorable!

[@wolvie1618]

His ghost is probably blushing somewhere at all this and all the replies lol

[@madameberry]

oh, THAT'S why it looked like nobody had collarbones back then? That's such a distinctive look from these eras, which I had thought was due to fat distribution or something, but it being photomanipulation makes so much more sense than like... human body structure drastically changing in that specific area over time. lol

[@jonnabergstrom8268]

I was so born in the wrong era! I have "look like I dont have any collarbone" typ of body 🙃🤣 people find it strange that they are hardly showing on me 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@kitten11483]

It seems so obvious now!

[@lilacsilver]

I also thought these were changes in people's bodies through time! I still think there is a natural change through time, but not in, what now seems awfully ridiculous to have thought!

[@ValeriePallaoro]

likeing this for the 'lol' at the end ... nice point and great ironic lol use

[@zebnemma]

And that one photo where they reshaped that girls shoulders to be more rounded. That's pretty iconic too for old photos but I have never questioned it somehow. Damn that it was fake all along... It's a pretty nice figure not gonna lie. And that faces always look spotless I thought was due to old photos being overexposed by default so I never questioned that. Take a photo today and make it overexposed and you will get a natural retouch without having to technically do anything.

[@oanaheller2166]

As someone who is an artist who does oil paintings especially portraits of people, it always felt weird to me this hatred people feel towards "editing" and hiding one's blemishes. I am not talking about extreme cases of making ones waist look 12 cm smaller, but some of the alternative influencers I used to follow started being against any kind of editing and retouching. Which is mind blowing to me. When I make a portrait painting using someone's face as a reference, a friend or a sibling, you can bet I am not painting zits or dark shadows under their eyes. You are making that image be the representation of someone. Does the zit they had on their nose in that day represent them? No. A beauty mark they have been having on their face since forever, that is to stay and that represents them. But not temporary blemishes.

[@valeriepark9444]

The phrase "that is an affected stance, the corset is not doing that for you" just Changed Everything. Of COURSE people (women) didn't strut around like pigeons all the time. Nor do people these days walk around with their butt stick out and their legs held apart to give them a continuous thigh gap. Thank you, Bernadette!

[@carameldare]

Excuse me speak for yourself. I do the butt-out, thighs apart waddle at all times. Its most alluring.

[@lenabreijer1311]

I don't need to stick out my nonexistent butt or walk wide legged to have that gap. It is only through the internet that I discovered that peoples thighs touched and chafed.

[@skully6223]

Lmao!! Unfortunately, (& I say unfortunately bc I'm non-binary, masc-presenting) & I have, what I like to call, a "duck ass"!!! My wonderful father passed down to my sister & I, his oddly shaped spine...where-in the bottom of my spine dips in further than it probably should, so it makes our asses poke out more than they normally would!! There's some name for it I believe, but what's odd is that I've had 2 back surgeries, yet my Dr did not mention it (or I was too out of it to remember) Its like I'm a damn centaur but the back portion of my horse-y bits got chopped off! Anyway, I wouldn't even have needed a bustle..for real!! And thigh-gap....ha!! What's a thigh-gap?! If I were to wear corduroy pants and run half a mile, I'd set my damn self on fire! My inner thighs have been besties since like 5th grade!😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@janetplanet09]

@@skully6223 LMAO. I also have that spinal feature. When I sit up straight, my ass touches the back of the chair and my back is 4 inches away. I always look like I'm about to leap out of a chair.

[@erikmagnuson9670]

May not intentionally walk that way, but what do you think high heels are for if not to change the shape of leg and butt?

[@dnsoulx]

i always thought the resolution in the 1900s were so bad that it couldn't pick up skin detail, it's really uncanny to see such old pictures where everyone doesn't looks like a porcelain doll

[@elizamcclain207]

I know me too, I thought they just had cameras that were always on overexposure. 😅

[@hayleygullett]

They’re laughing at us from their graves lmao

[@erikmagnuson9670]

@@elizamcclain207 Retouching and high-key exposure/lighting were not mutually exclusive. It’s both because the lighting used makes the retouching easier.

[@CeceBiche]

Speaking of painting, the french painter Courbet was completely rejected at the Salon after proposing his « Les baigneuses » (meaning The bathing ladies) in 1853, which pictured a realistic naked lady with all of what would be considered flaws. Hips, belly and so on. She was called by the high society a « cow » or a « labour horse » because of course she did not correspond to the canon of that era. And Courbet was completely rejected by the « mainstream people » and is now considered one the the founders of the realist mouvement in french painting. Also, I think one painter is to be mentioned when alteration of the body is the subject : Ingres ! When you really look close at his portraits of naked people, you realise that bones are not at the right places I Love what you do ! Thanks 🥰

[@MossyQuartz]

I feel old. My photographer parents showed me how to fix photographs in the darkroom and after the darkroom. Mom showed me how to use both dry and wet retouching tints. It never occurred to me that people didn't know about retouching! I remember using those tints and paintbrush to remove power lines from an otherwise pretty landscape photograph. I assumed the old days used this process for removing pox marks and similar.

[@NathanButh]

ln case it helps, I think it's remained well known in the the community of people that use photo editing software. After all, the primary tools these programs gives us are named and function like their real world counterparts. It has definitely become less well know collectively with the onset of apps that automatically make these adjustments. Always used to ask why this topic would get brought up as if it is a brand new issue rather than just a discussion had later than it should have. Of course, as the video said, we do potentially have the new issue of the adjustments being made in real time and visible immediately to their subjects.

[@thevampirefrog06]

I always think of old-fashioned photo editing in terms of those old soviet 'disappearance' photos where they brushed out people who'd fallen out of favor with the regime, but using it to clear up a face or get rid of powerlines makes just as much sense.

[@nishthaarora9533]

Damn. It sounds awesome that your parents taught you that.

[@vintage.doll.1926]

@mossyquartz. You are not old. You simply have a unique set of skills and accompanying knowledge that few do. Thanks for starring with those of us (me included) who mistakenly believed vintage photographs were primarily the IRL versions of the individuals. However, I retrospectively feel like I did always wonder about some of the Gibson girl-esque photos in the back of my inquisitive little brain.

[@ognimaeb]

I did a B&W photography course at university (early 2000s, digital photography was already well on the rise at that point), and although we didn't touch on the more advanced methods I did learn about filters, masking, and playing with exposure and different image setting routines. I absolutely loved it. And I also have always worked on the assumption that people knew that most old photographs were retouched.

[@israeltovar3513]

Goya was heckled for painting the king and queen of Spain in a "too realistic manner", meaning, they looking just as ugly as they were perceived. It always makes me chuckle...

[@dingbattery]

I might speculate that the expectation of photos representing reality might have come from the advent of mass personal photography. I grew up looking at family photos that my parents shot with their SLRs onto film. Those photos were never altered, and I would say that this is definitely where I learned to expect photos to show reality.

[@ValeriePallaoro]

That's a good thought. I wonder if the advertising for cameras and printing of the photos kept saying things like 'real colour', 'true depth' as they became popular? I know that Kodak printing had a blue cast to it and Fuji was more evenly red/blue/green, so printing with Fuji was more close to expectation. That's a real interesting speculation. Thanks

[@TooLittleInfo]

That's a good point. When people started taking their own photos and not relying on professionals to do it, and compounded by the advent of colour film specifically, which has to sent to a lab for processing and printing bc it's too complicated to DIY at home. That's probably when people started to lose awareness of retouching techniques. When you go back to the time of silver based black and white films, lots of people were still printing these at home and using darkroom based retouching techniques on them

[@TooLittleInfo]

@@ms.l8927 There is no such thing as "objective reality" in photography. Every single variable from the film/sensor, the lens, the light, the perspective, even something as simple as where the photographer is standing or the precise moment in time that the shutter is pressed etc, every single one of those variables will change what is or isn't recorded in the photo, and therefore has the potential to change the story that is being told in the photo.

[@mollyhunter6239]

That makes a ton of sense!

[@TooLittleInfo]

@@ms.l8927 IMO there has always been an element of propaganda in photography, just as it is in journalism, public relations, painting, sculpture--think of royal portraits in Europe or reliefs on the temples in Karnak etc, they are almost always used to portray the subjects in the most flattering light, as powerful, strong, heroic etc. Basically all kinds of art and creative endeavours have been used for propaganda purposes, even if just personal propaganda (e.g. perfect life on IG) The purpose is to advance the agenda of the subject, it's for THEM not for us, the viewer. And you may be surprised but people like seeing this stuff. People want to see beauty, they want to see heroism, they want something aspirational. People don't necessarily always want truth. In fact, I daresay that in general, people usually don't want hard truth. I believe that this is human nature.

[@Duckie313]

It will be interesting to see how various media, and influencers, will deal with the new law here in Norway, manipulated photos and videos in a commercial setting, have to be clearly marked as such.

[@bernadettebanner]

I think that’s such a good idea to have to disclaim the retouching done on commercial material, I don’t doubt that’s too far off for the rest of us!

[@Archiduchess3]

Yep there's the same law in France. I like to see the little coment under EVERY advertisement now.

[@sarahwatts7152]

That is awesome!!

[@dark2lightlight2dark74]

Do they have to also list what they have done? Because I feel there is still a huge difference between editing the colours of a photo and actually factuning, "distorting" the photo in a way. So if they just have to say THAT they have edited the original in some way, I feel like that loses some of its meaning. But such an important step nonetheless! Especially in commercial content.

[@merrylty7632]

@@Archiduchess3 yes, so satisfying to see!

[@LuxurioMusic]

As someone who studied photography, Photoshop was essentially a digitisation of darkroom techniques.

[@annelyle5474]

Yes - the terms "dodge" and "burn" are literally lifted straight from those techniques

[@user-mv9tt4st9k]

I have used Photoshop to scan and digitally repair degraded family photos (e.g., TOC images of my great grandmother). With old photos it is sometimes hard to tell what is an actual blemish or mark and what is a product of the photo's age. 😉

[@Nettietwixt]

I was going to say the same too. I learned photography pre digital and these techniques were just something you began to learn in the darkroom. It's was so widely done as a standard part of printing but people are so unaware of it.

[@gregmark1688]

You missed an interesting rabbit hole: the part about "opening closed eyes' is probably there to help folks with the surprisingly popular Victorian practice of photographing their recently deceased loved ones. There were special 'stands' sold to photog studios for the sole purpose of propping up a corpse for a photo. It was popular to 'open' their eyes by retouching the photo, but it wasn't entirely uncommon to actually paint fake eyes on the eyelids of the deceased. You probably have no idea just how many Victorian photos of family groups you've seen in which one of them (often the youngest) has actually just died the day before.

[@lifeisgood9889]

That’s so crazy! Thank you for sharing!

[@Teverell]

@@lifeisgood9889 These... these aren't real. They're of living people, a large number of these photos show motion blur, there's one of a girl on her tricycle with her dog - bu there's another picture of the same girl riding the trike with the same dog. There's one of twins, one supposedly dead, but whose blue eyes didn't photograph well. There's one of a girl on a chair with very obvious motion blur. Several 'dead' people are holding things, which they couldn't do if they're deceased. The stands were designed to help people stand still for long periods of time in a day when cameras had long exposure times (therefore the motion blur in several photos) and there are adverts for these stands showing how they're supposed to be used. I would link to a website about them but KZbin doesn't like off-site links.

[@digby_dooright]

@@Teverell When I was little my dad had my dog stuffed after he died and we took a family picture with him like he was still alive. I just found the picture when I went back home for Christmas. 😖😬

[@allegrabonina5964]

@@Teverell some are real, in Italy (south for sure) they did it until 1960

[@ThatWeirdo04]

This is largely a myth. Caitlin Doughty (Ask A Mortician) has a video on this topic if you want to know more.

[@yeoldetrashheappe]

Something I wasn't expecting to learn from this video is that cameras from the Victorian/Edwardian period actually produced much higher quality photographs than I thought. Someone just came along later and scraped all the details off.

[@jameswilkinson1211]

@@black_forest_ and the older wetplate photography technique was even more detailed. Historians love examining them because you can zoom in many times and more and more details can be seen

[@kelsey2333]

When she said scrape the photos, does she mean they literally scrape stuff off the photos?

[@MacNerfer]

It was more expensive to take a photo, so people saved every one of them, even ones that were badly exposed. Also the photos have aged over the last 80-100-120 years, so there's no shortage of bad old photos. But yes, they could also make very good photos by the 1860's, if done right.

[@queergeologist8207]

old aerial spy photography was actually analysised using microscopes bc you could see very tiny details!

[@jordanlopez5812]

They probably would be pleased to know their photo editing worked so well that we bought into it even hundreds of years later 😂

[@subtropical1228]

When I was 14 my family decided to get a nice portrait done and without asking me the photographers retouched my arms to conceal my arm air and it honestly hurt my feelings - I felt like they were sending a message that they thought my arm hair was ugly and didn't belong in a nice picture ☹

[@Escapingmuffin]

We have a family photo where the person who did it covered my smile with my brothers smile. As an autistic person this always upset me. I thought my smile looked fine. 😂

[@cFestivalista]

Had a discussion about this years and years ago with a friend who got so angry at me when I said that even the Victorians edited their photos, he basically screamed at me that I was wrong - that manipulating photos is NEW, that they didn't have the tools to do it. Tried to explain, but refused to listen to me.

[@frostyskeletons8950]

Oof, I hope that he is less of a friend these days or has grown as a person. Lots to unpack there…

[@smoldoodlebby634]

He sounds like the kind of dude who idealizes the 1950’s housewife aesthetic :\ hope that person has grown and accepted knowledge, and stopped being gross

[@filiaaut]

It's a little while after the Victorian era, but the most famous examples I can think of is the censorship of images in the USSR, where people would "dissapear" from historical photographs after they were executed in the 1930's, the results are spectacular (and quite scary to be honest).

[@misstweetypie1]

@@filiaaut I was thinking of the exact same example. It’s kind of crazy seeing an original and a manipulated photo, they are very good!

[@ValeriePallaoro]

Not everyone is comfortable knowing this. Sad you had to experience this. Some of us are more credulous, some less so. Explaining the truth of something to someone whose fighting you on it is hard. He's a 'golden ager'. Good on you for trying, though

[@adiposeNarnian]

Slightly tangential to the "we don't assume paintings are perfectly accurate, so why photography?" My mother is a painter; a fairly brilliant portrait artist. Throughout my childhood, clients sitting for her love at art festivals and the like would always say "make me look thinner" or "make me look younger" or even just "make me look good". Always she blinked in total confusion and said "I'm going to paint what I see." In later years, she's embraced a bit more flexibility and the ability to give someone back a lost necklace or paint them with clothing they cant afford. She even paints portraits of departed loved ones who didn't have recent photos based on a combination of reference photos, photos of relatives, and photos taken after their death. This of course is not fully accurate; but I think it's noble.

[@khaxjc1]

Agreed

[@yellowbags]

You write beautifully!

[@adiposeNarnian]

@@yellowbags thank you very much! This was not a response I expected. Love.

[@cianap.281]

I'm a portrait artist too, and so, so many people laughingly ask me to make them look good, as a nervous joke, that I finally just had to come up with a stock answer to complete the social circuit ("haha can ya make me look 20 years younger? Haha!" "Haha, oh yeah that comes standard!" and then we're done with that uncomfortable interaction and can start talking like normal people). All of the more serious requests, though, honestly made me sad. People feel insecure about the weirdest stuff, you wouldn't believe. And portraiture taught me that people need to calm the hell down about their hair in particular, it looks fine really. I began explaining to people that little imperfections like some hairs out of place make them look alive in a portrait, otherwise it has this weird embalmed-looking effect. And people seem to welcome this.

[@thevampirefrog06]

When we got senior portraits done in high school, the photographer airbrushed my acne away without even asking. I think they had a box on the order form where you could pay a little extra to get extra-effective blemish removal. Everything old becomes new again.

[@danone2414]

i had that done. i didn't even bought the album because i didn't recognize myself on top of my own image problems

[@jtaylor7970]

I wanted that sooo bad 😂. But my mom couldn’t afford to pay for them to do it

[@beannie0weenie354]

I'm convinced that on my 8th grade ID photo, they tanned my skin and made an effort to remove my nose piercing. Now they didn't do a very good job, and maybe it was just the camera. But I am a very pale person, and my photo came out o r a n g e, like I put on a terrible fake tan. That was my least flattering ID picture and I hate looking at it to this day

[@elisabetfinlayson8539]

It's so strange to see that retouched images a hundred-odd years ago have entirely shaped modern views on Edwardian and victorian people - I wonder how people are going to see us, years down the line. If humanity is still around by that point...

[@cynthiabrogan9215]

I hope humanity doesn’t last that long

[@ghostchiryou]

@@cynthiabrogan9215 Why not???? It seems a bit messed up to wish death on an entire species, many of whom want to… not die out, just because you personally are a bit sad or something.

[@StrigExLibris]

@@ghostchiryou you sound a bit desperate. It's pretty rude. Let the rest of us that are nihilistic be and keep your 'let's hope we live forever to keep destroying this place' optimism away

[@forestofsecrets7273]

@@StrigExLibris you do realize its notvthe average man destroying the earth, right? its the people who own companies, the people in government who could very well pass bills to save the einviornment but dont. its fucked up to wish death onto billions of innocent people for the actions of a handful

[@BombaJead]

@@StrigExLibris funny you call them rude when they responded in a polite way. Or what, is questioning other's ideas considered rude now? If so I'll be rude with you right now: your view is not nihilistic if you then proceed to say you care about this place, so which is it? do you care or not? Perhaps your nihilism is just an excuse to justify inaction.

[@IuliaBlaga]

when Karolina retouched her photos with a sharpie it looked believable af. we are the same people, whatever technology is available

[@CallmeOzymandias]

Very true...

[@canyou7670]

What was the title of the video?

[@IuliaBlaga]

@@canyou7670 kzbin.info/www/bejne/kInFlIOdm851ZrM

[@canyou7670]

@@IuliaBlaga thank you

[@Celcey24]

I think another big reason why we have these standards for photos today is because there was a long period of time where owning your own camera became more common, and retouching (outside of magazines) was relegated mostly to professionally done photos. So there was no longer an expectation of your personal photos being retouched, and that's where we were when social media started.

[@lefebvre4852]

Maybe the newest generation used to phone cameras with filters automatically applied will be more conscious that photos are fake (if the cameras let you know that a filter has been applied). Or maybe the opposite.

[@Apledore]

Here’s the other thing about photography: what settings you use matter intensely, so much so that you can make someone look 20lbs heavier or lighter or have a much larger or smaller nose in photographs taken only moments apart. Our eyes correct for a lot of things that the camera can’t on its own. So which image is “real”? Hard to say.

[@WoodlandPoetry]

How very true! A portrait lens is so much different than a wide-angle lens. Especially with the shape of the nose - that's a real hoot!

[@tobywood00]

its mainly because a camera lense only has 1 thing to look through while an eye has 2. knowing how to take a picture can do almost as much as photoshop for changing the way you look. getting the right lense, the right lighting, the right distance. modern beauty influencers dont have perfect skin, and the expensive makeup doesnt do much for the final product, its the lighting. with having a good circle light, you remove any trace of cakey makeup, wrinkles, weird shadows, all that. unedited photos or videos can make you look so different if you know what to do and do it right

[@emcaco]

Oh how much distortion and processing our visual centers do is insane! Our brains "correct" the size of the moon because of its position our brain's like "ok we need to understand that's a big heckin thing" so your brain scales up the size you perceive. That's why the moon can look so big to you then you try to take a photo and it looks so tinyyy.

[@amazingdollart4676]

So there IS a chance I look as good as I do in a mirror? I swear I turn into quasimodo when I take a selfie 😭 used to tell myself I look better in motion

[@tifKh]

@@amazingdollart4676 Okay, so, weird trick- I don’t know if you have an iPhone, but that’s what I use- I was explaining this exact same to my friend who’s a photographer for a living- he said people who hate selfies generally will like mirror selfie’s better, at the very least. He then suggested I take a mirror selfie in telephoto mode, and that’s going to be weirdly closer to what our eye sees. (For whatever reason he explained that I was completely following )

[@stubbletts]

It's so comforting to know that no one has ever looked in real life the way they look in visual media. Makes the people of the past seem so much more relatable. Thank you for exposing the truth!

[@Patrick3183]

lol shut up

[@tommier5210]

Its healthy to find that out.

[@opheliadavey8140]

I learned about the "tiny waist" optical illusion by padding out the chest and backside when I started becoming more interested in the work of drag queens. Yes, they still corset and cinch but there is also an understanding that the visual effect comes from enhancing other areas also. So interesting to see all the historical fashion production methods referenced today! Thank you for another wonderful video.

[@allwingspoo]

I will always be sad that freckles are often considered imperfections (unless they are artificial). I love my freckles.

[@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195]

Freckles are amazing 🤩🤩🤩

[@erikmagnuson9670]

It used to be freckles were difficult to either skin smooth around or fake realistically. Alas, you can no longer trust freckles.

[@athena1491]

freckles are gorgeous and so are you, fuck the fashion police!

[@adaileah]

I love your freckles too.

[@raetona]

Its a tremendous shame that freckles are considered imperfections. I find them to be incredible enhancements to people. They are completely unique to that person. I get sad when I see a beauty channel where someone with amazing freckles goes in with full coverage foundation every day.

[@judithstormcrow9073]

I love how people just assume that removing ones rips was more realistic than the idea of retouching photo's. Especially if you consider the MUCH higher mortality rate and less safe surgeries then we have now. And even now there's still plenty that can go wrong

[@Oscitant_Otter]

That one always gets me. Rib removal is still a dangerous surgery *today* done only extremely rarely but people honestly think the Victorians were able to do such a thing??

[@howler1579]

People lack common sense.

[@Kim-bp1kb]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@neuswoesje590]

plus anesthesia was not at all what it is now

[@thejasminedragonmerchant6843]

@@neuswoesje590 Not just anesthesia, the entire concept of surgery was so much more complicated...just thinking of operating theatres without the luxuries of proper sterilisation, post-op care or modern surgical knowledge makes me want to shiver. Getting any sort of invasive medical operation done sounds like it could've been easily much more horrifying! It's not like Victorian doctors could've ordered a new bag of saline, or had heavy-duty pre-operation hand washing done (hand washing didn't really become too widespread in hospitals until Semmelweis got really vocal about it in the 1850s), or heck, even getting an emergency liter of blood for transfusions...not really a thing for a while. Historical surgery is just terrifying.

[@HS-yr6sw]

I think perhaps the reason we accept that paintings have most likely been retouched is because we realise that the painter can change things as he's painting whereas with photos we think they should be a literal picture of what's been taken so can comprehend less easily them being tampered with.

[@eljanrimsa5843]

lol, you say it yourself. it's a picture. Nobody believes a person is really as small as the picture, or is really lack and white in color, or is really flat as a sheet of paper. There goes as much technique into producing a photographic picture as in a painted portrait. Why wouldn't you think this technique can be used to produce flattering effects for the same reasons a portrait painter does it?

[@jennarhodes2724]

Something we talked about all the time in art history courses is "just because it's naturalistic doesn't mean it's realistic"

[@adedow1333]

-ist, -ic, -ish...all suffixes declaiming "close, but no cigar."

[@katerrinah5442]

I think part of the issue with modern media is that it is a much truer representation of real life due to the wonders of modern cameras. If I look at an old painting it's logical to presume it's not accurate. And old photos while more real seem more like a distorted mirroring of reality due to graininess, colour, etc. However if I look at a modern photo my brain is automatically assuming it's accurate because it looks basically as I'd be seeing it with my own eyes. End of the day the best thing I found was learning to love myself and try to not compare myself. It's not easy and I don't always succeed but I'm certainly happier!

[@bernadettebanner]

Yes! I think the important thing to do now is to train our brains to view any digital image/video through a lens of unreality, in the same way our brains do that already with paint or tintype photography, &c. One thing I didn’t discuss in this video is the wild distortion that occurs in focal length of lenses: the shape of a person’s face can look entirely different from closeup/zoomed out vs far away/zoomed in. So even if filtering isn’t used, lens tricks that subtly change the shape of the face are present in every single photo and video ever. 😶

[@theonlybeka7337]

And also a lot of these Influencers will say their photos are untouched! So if you take them at their word then you think they truly are the Ideal, and if you doubt them then you are just a 'hater'

[@sophiaeressea5687]

I think the point is that "we" grew up in the 90s, early 2000s when picture / photo retouching was not very common but the brand new digital cameras were ubiquitous. The generation before us was used to carefully composed photos, our children know the basics of Photoshop before they learn to read :D

[@annahaugen2851]

@@sophiaeressea5687, I guarantee you that professional photographs in the 90s and early 2000s were absolutely as retouched (if not more retouched) than anything that happened in the Victorian era. Even tiny mom-and-pop photography studios always had an artist employed to fix skin and hair and get rid of double chins and make people look better. I know, because my parents had such a studio.

[@sophiaeressea5687]

@@annahaugen2851 i am not denying that. But at the the same time we had an avalanche of did-it-myself amateur photography

[@antibot9804]

I do wanna throw in...I think that age has to do with it. A big part of the influencer audience is like...12. And there's a looot of content. It's one thing to be 12 and see some doctored pictures in your dad's newspapers and another to be 12 and see more doctored and perfected realistic bodies around you than real ones. Even if you learn better on the facts, the dissatisfaction with your own body becomes internalised and hard to unlearn. Many adults and teenagers have learned to question imagery, so have some younger folks, but what can we reasonably expect from children?

[@ValeriePallaoro]

What we _can_ do is require of adults to not aim this _at_ children. Advertising standards are changing all the time and we should require more of them than we do now, on behalf of our kids.

[@ticcitoasty]

i find it misleading to frame all fans of influencers as children, and also to say these children somehow indulge in this material in a way that they can regulate the same way adults can. the beauty industry targets children a lot. adults can still be convinced these people are telling them the truth (i mean that’s part of the parasocial thing. they are trying to convince you they’re real by connecting with you) and in a world where genuine connection and interaction is becoming more of a privilege, it’s not far fetched that adults can be manipulated in this way. so i wouldn’t say it’s necessary children being gullible, and more of a marketing tactic that has worked and will continue to work especially with how social structures are changing.

[@LoveMusic-pd5iz]

My daughter didn't allow her daughters to look at magazines or watch television/computers until they went to school. Even then, they watched only tapes/discs without commercials. She then sat with them and showed them where the photos were manipulated. It was great to watch them, on their own, flipping through magazines saying, "fake, that's fake, that one too".

[@annastevens1526]

I'd love to see everyone get educated to be able to apply that level of critical thinking to everything we get thrown at us, from celebrity photos to political demagoguery! In our high school English class we did a unit on 'persuasive language' & use of images in marketing, but I don't know if that's a very common thing? More needed today than ever, though!

[@louiseheeran3730]

I remember watching "The house of Elliot" when I was younger and discovering this tidbit of information about retouching photos. Obviously didn't just take the shows word that this happened but went like yourself to Google what I could (at that time). It's great to show the world that the "perfect flawless picture" isn't just a modern issue.

[@foxceles]

well this is going on my watch list

[@annelyle5474]

@@foxceles I loved "The House of Elliot" - great show about two young women in the 1920s who set up a dressmaking business when their father's death leaves them penniless. Very on point for this channel 😀

[@lindabilodeau813]

I loved the house of Eliot.

[@louiseheeran3730]

@@lindabilodeau813 me too I was gutted when it was cancelled. I'd love a remake of it

[@jlammetje]

The house of Eliott was such a great show! Thoroughly enjoyed it as a teenager :-)

[@dianeshelton9592]

I did know this because my grandmother had a very prominent scar from an operation done for a facial cancer in 1908 All the way through her life , on her photos this scar at times completely disappeared. However knowing that her photos were manipulated it still didn’t occur to me that the practice was quite so prevalent. 😆 The other thing I had been noticing was that an awful lot of present day actress have moles on their face and necks. I actually got to thinking whether this should be medically researched. Answer no, because no doubt in previous generations their photos were doctored or their moles were covered up with thick make up. Nowadays it does seem to matter to anyone whether moles are present or not. Lisa Eldridge did a video recreating Marilyn Monroes make up as described by her make up artist. That flawless complexion was achieved with layers of Vaseline and face powder. No wonder make up artists hovered around set all the time with powder puffs , her face must have cracked so often under those hot lights. Thank you Bernadette , fascinating.

[@angelbear_og]

Vaseline melts and runs off, even at relatively "normal" room temperatures. She probably looked like a melted candle without constant touching up!

[@dianeshelton9592]

@@angelbear_og probably , I can’t find the video I felt sure it was Lisa but it could have been someone else. There was a bit in it that Marylins make up artists liked the fact Marilyn had quite a bit of peach fuzz so using the Vaseline and powder it got trapped in the fuzz and naturally gave all her photos and films a blur which made her look luminescent. Stunning woman but goodness there were make up secrets used to always emphasise her beauty. Her image was as manufactured as any influencer today.

[@pistachoo.]

@@dianeshelton9592 "Her image was as manufactured as any influencer today." Amen!

[@lakegirl239]

I can’t understand why when having cosmetic procedures the actresses don’t have the moles removed to achieve that flawless complexion.

[@Dulce-mn1zr]

@@lakegirl239 because it's no so simple: when you remove a mole through surgey It leaves a scar , as it happens in any surgical procedure.

[@ImSoCool2403]

You mentioning cottagecore when talking about Gibson girls made me say Gibsoncore in my head thanks

[@melissamybubbles6139]

Gibsoncore must happen. I've been wanting to play around with that hairstyle.

[@blisles7626]

Yess fren! We must make this happen. But how to work it with undercut I wonder?

[@ImSoCool2403]

@@blisles7626 Cover with own hair pieces after haircut?? Very period 🤭

[@blisles7626]

@@ImSoCool2403 Probably not long enough bits left over

[@melissamybubbles6139]

@@blisles7626 There's always the sock stuffed with fabric scrap method, but that still may not be enough.

[@NoEnvyNoFear1]

In my opinion, the biggest difference between now and then (except the amount of social media) is that we are aware of the harm it's doing, with women's voices being heard more and more. Society is starting to understand the ridiculousness of the lengths we go to, and is starting to question why we have to go there, and with the conversation about mental health, realising how those ideals are creating eating disorders. It's not strange that we assumed the Victorians removed ribs to achieve the ideal from pictures because we go to similar lengths today to achieve the very same thing with plastic surgery and diets etc. If we are removing parts of our bodies, why wouldn't they?

[@heatherhernandez4304]

I agree with this completely! We are also just now battling with the idea that rich people were somehow more deserving of their wealth either through exceptional beauty, exceptional intelligence, or exceptional piety. Humans back then, just like know, vaguely know retouching is going on but they don’t really immediately grasp the pervasiveness of it because they are trained to accept those idealized people as being somehow inherently better. Someone in the 18th century who had never had the wealth to have their portrait painted would not necessarily have reason to suspect it’s not realistic, especially having never seen the subject in real life.

[@hollyingraham3980]

It is insane that people think Victorians, before antibiotics, before aseptic surgery, before germ theory, were having ribs removed for vanity. Elective surgery was not a thing, because any surgery was a high chance of death from sepsis.

[@effeffiagonalick5078]

It does my heart good knowing that there were Victorian folks clowning around with photographs to create these illusions. Truly, we haven't changed at all!

[@digitaldgirl4459]

My father was a photographer and I have the set of "colored pencils" that he used back in the day to correct flaws in photographs and to repair damaged photos. It is treasured since he passed 4 years ago. It is cool that you spoke of these things today. Thank you.

[@ardicesaugar5475]

My Aunt Had a set of gel like paints (now dried up) to colorize photos.

[@SalindaNichols]

Similar insecurities, different centuries

[@snowzillaarts3735]

I was itching for "okay, but paintings?" and was truly, genuinely happy you brought them up. You are so thorough and clearly spoken!! 💖 Never fail to exceed hopes, thank you for what you do for us all. I am showing this to my 12 year old daughter next, to help her understand better what the internet (and humans) are like.

[@danischi4080]

I got an ad for professional photo retouching on this video The irony is ✨immaculate✨

[@chaoticpoodle]

Assuming people did know that art was idealized, I think the lag between widespread photography and widespread photo shop smashed that understanding. I spent decades unaware of the retouch tools available to professionals. I'm curious if people who've grown up using FaceTune on their own photos have a better instinct for "this is an ideal, not a reality"

[@ragnkja]

I agree that the era of sending in a roll of film for development may have changed our perception of what photography is supposed to be. Are people who grew up with digital photography viewing altered photos differently than those who grew up with amateur film photography? It would be interesting to know if young people today perceive these images differently than their parents did at the same age, but that sort of longitudinal study is hard to do, since the opportunity to get some of the data was about 25 years ago.

[@lucie4185]

It's a good point 20 years ago I took photos of myself and my friends on a disposable camera. You got them printed and that was that. No manipulation unless you had the choice of flash or no flash.

[@briggyb]

@@minaharker5699 do you think that's the majority? I have twin daughters who are 22. They are pretty by today's standards but still like to manipulate their photos. Their friends are the same. None would think of getting plastic surgery and most are comfortable with their features. They merely want their pictures to look better. I think they are what most "kids" in their early 20s are like. The ones centered around surgical procedures are not the norm, they're simply what we're exposed to because of their eccentric nature. But maybe I am not seeing the whole picture.

[@briggyb]

@@lucie4185 we always took multiple shots if we were trying to commemorate something special. I have some really amazing pictures and some really awful ones!! 😊

[@kmaher1424]

I am old but remember hearing about photos of movie stars being retouched. Snapshots were obviously in the raw. But I wish Mom was still here to give details on that one studio photo she was able to afford...

[@InfinityMind1]

I'm so glad you mentioned Karolina's work, she's one of the most well-known "historical clothing influencers" in Poland. I love both of your channels, you both have such a refreshing perspective on history as a part of living and breathing entity we still experience today. God bless you!

[@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195]

and in the world!

[@delanocarson7544]

Something like this debate was actually happening during the 18th century, Where there was this discourse between whether a portrait should aim to re-create reality as the painter saw it or if the painting was more about preserving the character of the person for future generations. You see this play out between a lot of Madame de Pompadour‘s portraits where she was painted looking very much not like what she actually looks like in a number of Boucher paintings and then if you compare those two paintings that were made just in a year or two afterwards by other artists where she looks significantly more aged and is also a lot heavier looking. So, at the very least, this sort of issue over truth versus idealism has been going on for a very long time

[@karenstrong6734]

Interesting point, I didn’t know that. Thanks for the comment and explanation, that’s well said. I have a question where did you get this source from?

[@AlexisTwoLastNames]

super interesting and also annoying. why are humans so human-y

[@karenstrong6734]

@@AlexisTwoLastNames it’s the way of our nature, you seem very misanthropic about this. Besides, there’s no such thing as perfectionism in human beings. Humans are humans, animals are animals. Humans are flawed, so get over it.

[@webwarren]

Do you have names and artists for the non-Boucher paintings? (I'd love to go up on Internet Museum of Art or some place like that to compare the images...)

[@Kalithrasis]

A lot of centuries old painted portrait conventions carried on well into the early 20th century too with the ideal being that one should never smile in a portrait. Usually this is explained that it took so long to set up photos, but by the 1850's and 1860's photos could be taken in seconds, but there are plenty of pictures of people in the 19th century smiling in casual pictures.

[@melimsah]

I think it's one of those things where - yeah, no one PROMISED that this wasn't retouched, but regular people who don't know the process are going to be influenced by images around us. I remember how much Seventeen magazine in the 90s affected my assumptions of what is "normal". And that's basically the thesis statement of media literacy theory right there - how media influences us, whether we know it or not.

[@ragnkja]

The era when the masses had easy access to photography but not to retouching may have altered the general perception of what a photo represents. How widely was the fact that commercial photography, such as that in glossy magazines, tended to be retouched discussed at the time?

[@AlexisTwoLastNames]

definitely. I know how much photo retouching and video retouching exists, but it still makes me feel like shit when I look in the mirror. lol but not lol

[@paganodesignworks]

@@ragnkja we knew it was possible. Everyone’s high school portraits were filtered. (Our mother’s and grandmother’s too) but just like today, when the ad or editorial for a pimple cream show a girl with perfect skin, you felt like shit when you looked at your own and believed the product was worth consideration. The idea that social media was “real people, in their natural state” was an early notion that didn’t last.

[@rinishan]

Yeah, it doesn't need to be real to be influential. If you're bombarded with idealized photos of pretty people all day every day you will start feeling shitty about your normal body & face. Especially now that we are isolated from other real people due to the pandemic.

[@AlexisTwoLastNames]

@@rinishan i think this has done the biggest doozy on me. i already struggle to be social but this really sent me into hermit territory

[@faithrudd2549]

I do think that people - especially fans who bought the postcards and bought into this kind of celebrity influencer culture c. 1902 - were supposed to believe these were real photos, the same way we are today. I suspect these exaggerated images were used to sell things just as they are now. They were selling an ideal, yes, but also quite literally selling things like corsets, face powders, hair tonics etc. etc. with their names and faces on them. I think people were expected to buy into that mythology of the celebrity actually looking like that the same way we are now.

[@KreeZafi]

My spontaneous amateur hypothesis is this: In the past, depictions of humans whether in photography or paintings were understood as being artistic representations done by professionals and thus people realized it wasn't accurate to reality. However in the past few decades, photography became accessible to the average person and for a while those pictures tended to be unedited, so we grew accustomed to photography being a real representation of what we saw. I think that's where the problem started to arise, we got used to having our own cameras (first the ones you needed to get pictures developed from, then digital cameras, and now phone cameras) and thus real, raw, unedited pictures, which made us forget that photos may not always be an accurate depiction of reality.

[@nucleicartist953]

Just left a comment along these lines, so YES! I agree. We all learn at some point advertisement and celebrity photos are manipulated, but it's relatively new in terms of personal photography. Not to mention telling the difference is often tricky.

[@gabrielaribeiro6155]

Agreed. Never did I assume that the pictures in magazines and billboards were real. But social media doesn't look like a magazine, nor like a billboard. It looks like a photo album. Like most people around my age (20's), I grew up with family photo albums, with photos taken by members of the family that were not in any way edited. So when we look at a regular person's picture in social media, taken by themselves or their friend, it's easy to assume that it has not been edited.

[@floraposteschild4184]

Re.: representations in the past being understood not to be accurate to reality -- that would be to assume everyone had a degree of sophistication that was in fact rare, and is still rare in our day. From what I can tell from fiction, non-fiction, and newspaper articles, the vast majority of people believed the images presented to them to be more or less accurate, and then would be surprised and disappointed if they happened to see the reality. I've lost count of the times I've read about people grumbling a painting or sculpture looked nothing like the subject, or being shocked how the queen or the count is in fact short and has a big nose. People used to collect pictures of "society beauties", and young girls would starve themselves and do other dangerous things to look like them.

[@mirandak7242]

@@gabrielaribeiro6155 Couldn't have said it better myself!

[@oliviastratton2169]

Yes, not to mention the rise of photojournalism, where the accuracy of the photographs is sort of the whole point.

[@theoriginalsuzycat]

3:14 personal cameras. Once people could take snapshots themselves and get them cheaply developed, we came to accept the "camera never lies" truism. We weren't retouching our pictures. We assumed that a snapshot reflected the truth, and also assumed commercial photos were the same.

[@KiKiStarling]

Good answer. Also things like newspaper photographers not being allowed to move items in their photos anymore.

[@kuroinokitsune]

yep. Thought the same thing. Also on top of it, many people basically live in internet now, so the difference between worlds becomes shocking.

[@morganmcallister2001]

I thought the exact same thing. I also think that helps explain why there were so many retouching manuals published around the turn of the century. Early personal cameras were expensive. Being aware of retouching techniques and making sure your customers know you know how to make them look good would be a good bet in keeping your professional studio in business. Once personal cameras became cheap enough for literally anyone to be able to afford one, well then it might be far more difficult to keep up.

[@AbsolXGuardian]

That's a good point. Heck, even just some good lighting and framing can do wonders. Then you get people taking polaraids of so many candid moments with no training and no pomp and circumstance, and then you get the idea of it being raw reality, even stripped of the vibes of being there.

[@theoriginalsuzycat]

@@morganmcallister2001 my parents and their friends all had studio portraits that made them look like movie stars of their day, and there are some proofs with arrows all over them that suggest how retouching would have been done to those shots - though I don't understand what was actually done.

[@Musicwarmsmysoul]

This is awesome! As someone with a background in anthropology and archaeology, I feel like I'm constantly saying, "you cannot judge the past by the values of today, but you can learn from your observations." I feel like I've seen that in action today.

[@ashley-cz1sl]

I majored in Photography in college. We had to do a Victorian touch-up as one of our projects. It was really interesting to learn about.

[@suem6004]

Interesting

[@KireiC]

The somewhat exasperated "I mean, just, like, she's missing like *twelve* ribs," at 9:17 really got me! 🤣

[@lilacsilver]

I laughed, too, haha

[@wolvie1618]

That's half her ribs, any more and her torso would be a squishy organ tube with no structural support. She'd really need a good corset to hold herself up then. You're welcome for the mental image lol

[@victorvilletess]

I've had this conversation about tight-corsetting. The corsets weren't as tight as the manipulated photos and advertisements would infer. The response is "They didn't have the technology." But they did as you have shown here.

[@SpencerPowell]

Building upon your theory, I wonder if the understanding that photographs are going to be manipulated to be as flattering as possible to the subject was lost not in the internet era, but in the era of cheap and disposable personal cameras. When it became not just possible, but relatively cheap for every household to take dozens of photos of themselves over the course of a couple of years, but not necessarily to pay to have those photos professionally retouched, there became a stronger expectation of reality in photography. Of course, commercial photography still would have used the same tricks, and the same manipulation tactics to make sure that they were presenting the best version of whatever they were trying to sell as possible. But I know for myself growing up, I was surrounded by amateur photographs, taken by and of loved ones, and the influence of professional photo manipulation was not ingrained into me until the digital photo revolution started gaining more traction.

[@ragnkja]

You said what I’ve been thinking, but much better.

[@verityl.7532]

This was my thought as well! That what really happened here was a brief, unique period between "almost all representative images of humans are created (and made more beautiful) by professionals (painters or photographers)" and then later "algorithmic software makes it extremely easy for amateurs to make their own photos more beautiful." In that tiny interim, many, many representative images of humans were made by amateurs who also had little or no ability to alter them... and the people who grew up in that environments specifically have a higher expectation that photos will be more realistic. I wonder if the kids being born now or maybe another generation forward will lack that expectation, and as software to edit video footage gets cheaper and more ubiquitous, if they will look at even video footage the same way people hundreds of years ago looked at paintings, just with an underlying assumption that they aren't exactly real.

[@sahajthind8117]

My Grandmother was a beautiful woman but once when she went to get her photo taken the photographer wanted her to wear a bindi (this was in India probably in the 50s ) she told him she didn’t want to but after the photo he drew one on her forehead fore the sole reason of making her look more “aesthetic” (this video just reminded me of that)

[@eerielakeerie]

this makes me feel so much better about the pictures of my great-grandparents in our living room. the knowledge that they didn’t have flawless skin either makes me feel better about my acne, especially since otherwise i look a lot like my great-grandmother!

[@emiliayap8762]

The quote "warts and all" was attributed to Oliver Cromwell when having his portrait painted which shows that it was normal to erase imperfections in portraiture, so you're spot on there!

[@ManorandMaker]

Came here to make sure this note was captured. +5 to you :)

[@clockworkkirlia7475]

That's what I was thinking! I don't *love* what he did in general, but at least he was positive about his own appearance!

[@tenacious-e3o]

You’re so pretty 🤩

[@clairvaux8459]

I remember there was a period where people went "oh my god the women in the past were contorting their bodies to fit the societal beauty ideal!!" because they truly believed women's waists had been that small, until people eventually wised up and realised the folks in the past had photoshop premium member subscription. 🥴🥴

[@Hysteria_Costumes]

If you have a look into facebook groups concerning (fashion) pictures from that era you will find that people still believe that. Beneath EVERY SINGLE photo of an a bit slenderer woman you will find a comment something like oh how did they breathe or that's why they fainted so much or they squeezed themselves so much to please men or something with vanity etc etc etc.... And you will also still find people believing the myth that they removed their bottom ribs *rolleyesveryhardly*

[@EXO-L45]

@@Hysteria_Costumes Those Comments hurt my soul, I swear. What's so annoying about them is that with just a little bit of research, you will find credible and logical (because most people don't have critical thinking when talking and discussing 19th century). Victorians and Edwardians knew what they were doing 💯

[@EXO-L45]

Some articles, Facebook groups still promote this wrong idea. It got too much that I left these groups, all they could talk is the waist measurement without appreciating the picture or Era 🤦

[@carameldare]

Omg when I was 15, my mom pulled up one of these old photos of my great grandmother to shame me for not being smaller. (I was a size 6 at the time.) My g-grandmother was in a corsetted, posed, professional portrait (that now seems likely to have been a bit retouched), but my mom thought my waist should just naturally be that smallm

[@Hysteria_Costumes]

@@EXO-L45 I totally get you. I'm also almost on the brim of leaving some groups because of the absolute lack of common sense in there. It's mind-boggling how (I have no other word) dumb people are and how willing to believe even the stupidest statement. Even when you tell people you wear a selfmade corset they rather believe the "scandalous" rubbish they've read on a shady internet page. Some weeks ago I had a "discussion" with someone about said stuff where she wanted to tell me that this and that has happened because there is a TV series set in that period.... Can you believe it? A TV series! And therefore it had to be real. I was so baffled I had almost no words anymore.

[@Gladtobemom]

Absolutely excellent! I actually own my great grandmother's presentation gown, her wedding gown, and many of her dresses. Her presentation gown actually contains lines of stitching that were erased in her photo. Her waist was 23" but in the photo it looks absolutely tiny and her arms look like thin sticks, yet the arms on the gown were fairly normal for my 16 year old daughter . . . not skinny.

[@mirkatofficial]

Your point about “did anyone actually expect it to be realistic” is very interesting. I don’t know how to balance it with Henry VIII being pissed that Anne of Cleves’ portrait was ‘overly flattering’, but I’m willing to possibly chalk it up to just...him being a monarch, and thus a massive asshole lmao

[@grittykitty50]

snarkengaged, That's funny because I bet Anne was just as disappointed, if not more, when she saw the real Henry. I think he was just crass to mention her portrait and arrogant enough to believe that he really looked as good as his portraits.

[@Linnet09]

I think powerful people back then, who generally were the ones making political marriages with people they'd never met, quite naturally made some effort to get a realistic painting and also descriptions of the potential spouse. They'd send their own agents, knowing perfectly well that a portrait from those supporting the marriage might be misleading advertising. Henry VIII was just a bit more public about his disappointment than most, and could arrange a divorce. Ann of Cleves was well out of that marriage.

[@fedra76it]

Interestingly, the Anne of Cleves incident was exactly the one that came to my mind. Maybe in that case the embellishments applied by the painter went beyond the typical effort.

[@belagrolaub8746]

he WAS a massive asshole, beyond a doubt lol

[@sarareimold3151]

I think the evidence suggests that Anne was just as attractive as the portrait, but that Henry was butthurt when she wasn't attracted to him. Why is everyone taking the word of a guy who trumped up charges on at least two wives? Anne got off easy by being "only" called ugly

[@Truth1561]

You only have to look into the ‘Cottingham Fairies’ case to know that photo manipulation was perfectly achievable well over 100 yrs ago.

[@Wednesdaywoe1975]

Well, if it fooled the real life Sherlock, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves.

[@michaelwright2986]

It looks more like they cut out paper pictures and stuck them up, and then photographed the prepared scene in a straight way. A local professional photographer testified that the imaged hadn't been subjected to photographic manipulation, and they probably hadn't. When I saw the images, I was astonished that anyone could have been fooled by them, but Conan Doyle was deep into spiritualism, and evidently needed to believe. Like believing in aliens, really.

[@raerohan4241]

You mean Cottingley Fairies?

[@ИмяФамилия-ф2д8ш]

@@michaelwright2986 we have to cut some slack people century ago weren't so used to "photoshop" and other "effects"

[@michaelwright2986]

@@ИмяФамилия-ф2д8ш In this case, I don't really think it's excusable. Have you seen the pictures? The fairies really are obvious paper cut-outs, just stuck up on sticks in front of the girls. And in the late 19th and early 20th centuries people were well aware of photo manipulation. A lot of the first 'art photographs' were elaborate composite prints composed from many negatives: the most famous one is Oscar Reijlander's 'Two Ways of Life', which is reproduced in the Wikipedia article on Reijlander. And then there was all the retouching, as a matter of course.

[@3DJapan]

The thing is, photo journalism came along and people expected photographs to be evidence of reality.

[@eljanrimsa5843]

You mean they expect people to be 4 by 6 inches and 2-dimensional?

[@ez4026]

I hadn't thought how incongruous their complexions were until you mentioned it. Smallpox wasn't eradicated until the 1970s, most people would have had pox scars.

[@floraposteschild4184]

Although I get what you're saying, most people didn't get smallpox, let alone up to the 1970s -- it's not like chickenpox! Smallpox is an extremely serious illness. Still, there are many other illnesses they had to contend with that could blemish skin.

[@ez4026]

@@floraposteschild4184 you're right, probably not most but it was really common, before the vaccine in 1796, 1 in 13 deaths were due to smallpox, and about 70% of people who had it survived, and many of them were disabled, not just disfigured. So back of the envelope math, I guess about half of unvaccinated people got it.

[@pandagirl855]

My Grandpa was a photographer and my Grandma would spend hours with prismacolor pencils to touch up portraits and other photos. It was part of being a professional photographer is that they would touch up blemishes. Why with easy tools to touch up photos, do we accept everything as given today? It’s always been part of portraiture to touch up photos .

[@stringofpearls4551]

This was like an audio visual version of a well written and thoughtful essay: well done and thought provoking!

[@debmacie1612]

Now I will start looking at all my very old family photos with a magnifying glass to see if I can find retouching. Oh goodie, another rabbit hole! Love it. Thank you Bernadette, you are the best 🤩

[@mayfair_forest_witch]

Today I checked early XX century photos from my collection, and noticed some of very visible waist editing in photos. Before watching Bernadette's video I was aware darkroom edits were a thing, but never actually checked photos from my albums, I need to get a magnifying glass, ha! 😅

[@archervine8064]

I have actually seen Victorian era photographs of people with ‘blemished’ skin… but they’re in medical texts and specifically meant to depict the skin condition being discussed. Im guessing most of the people photographed either chose not to be photographed otherwise, or had their personal photos retouched.

[@clueless_cutie]

Consider the sanitary conditions and the toxic products of the time periods and it really doesn't take long to realize those photo are not adding up. Clear skin when you worked 18 hours in a sweat shop around caustic/toxic agents? Inconceivable! The staggering number of illnesses or injuries that would leave people permanently disfigured/marked... I can't believe I never realized this stuff sooner.

[@alissameeker]

I always assumed that people back then actually had better complexions, and that maybe it was due to diet or something. But this video, other videos, and the comments have made me realize that retouching is a much more likely explanation! 😅

[@erikmagnuson9670]

The exception is portraits of Native Americans or elderly African-Americans or Asians.

[@lottaleijon6654]

@Bernadette, in 1890 a 16 year old relative of mine died. According to the doctor she had starved and corseted herself “as so many young girls nowadays” as he wrote. So some form of anorexia and trying to fit the perfect fashion was a problem even then. I do believe we have always tried to look good, idealized the impossible and suffered from mental illness.

[@kirstenpaff8946]

I think the big differences between painted portraits of the past and today's social media are the purpose the images served and the pervasiveness of them. A royal portrait was about projecting power and status. The actual individual was less important than the position they held. This is why the portraits were also often filled with symbolic objects that represented military or political might. While royals could influence fashion, it was only for a very small circle of elites. Your average mantua maker wouldn't look at a portrait of Marie Antoinette and think "I should try that look". She would see the queen dressed in what was essentially the uniform of her job. Part of the reason why the portrait of Marie Antoinette in a chemise a la reine caused such a scandal was that it showed her as a person, not as her role as queen. Social media on the other hand, sells itself as a representation of real life "normal" people who are your "friends". While we on some level know that the photos are likely staged and altered, the realism of photography and the "influencers are just regular people" message, combined with the non-stop exposure to those images, makes us feel like our reality is insufficient. This is what makes social media such an effective marketing tool, because it changes our subconscious perception of normal and makes us believe that we are the ones that are not normal and therefore must purchase whatever product is being sold in order to be "normal". On an unrelated note, I believe that the continued usage of illustrations in advertisement throughout the earlier half of the 20th century was mostly the result of cost and technology limitations. Printing high quality photos was more expensive than printing illustrations, and for much of the period, colored film didn't exist, so illustrations were the way to go if you wanted eye catching colored ads.

[@grittykitty50]

just a quick search reveals that color photography existed as early as 1907 and possibly as early as 1850 and became popular in the mid 1930's. Similarly, the technology to produce colored movies existed as early as 1902.

[@kirstenpaff8946]

@@grittykitty50 ​ As I understand it, "colored" photographs in the Victorian and Edwardian era were hand painted. They did not used film that could capture color. Colored film started to become a thing in the 30s, especially in the movie industry, but it still remained pretty expensive and out of reach for the average consumer until well after WWII.

[@Chibihugs]

It is absolutely boggling that humans have been editing photos as long as we have had them. But when you think about people it's not truly surprising. I think we often don't give the people of the past credit for finding ways to do, make or figure out things without our modern tech. Fascinating video and full of interesting quandaries to consider.

[@sadielappin8862]

I wrote a paper in undergrad (for an art history class on portraiture) comparing post-mortem portraits to spiritualist ghost photographs (basically, are these portraits, and are the subjects people?) and the amount of reading I ended up doing on the late 19th century belief in the truth of a photograph really shook me, with how it made me realize, “Oh no, I do that, too…” Even as someone who literally uses Photoshop as part of my work, I still trust photos way too much, because they feel so authoritative.

[@infamoussphere7228]

Reminded of the tale of Henry VIII seeing Anne of Cleaves in real life and being offended that she didn't look exactly like the portrait that Hans Holbein the Younger painted of her. Poor Anne of Cleaves (but at least she got dumped quickly and didn't end up beheaded or dying in childbirth!)

[@kellymartin2603]

This is exactly what I thought of!

[@vysharra]

There’s decent evidence that she wasn’t as ‘ugly’ as Henry described but he was instead trying to make excuses for the lack of romantic love/physical passion between them now that he was an older, softer man married to an older, more mature woman (I prefer the narrative that he might have been impotent due to his obesity/chronic pain, but the evidence is thin). She ended up the best out of all the wives, so he didn’t hate her once she divorced him.

[@Cat-rr3ey]

@@vysharra I thought that it was because he tried to be romantic by disguising himself as a servant and Anne of Cleves rejected him since she didn't know it was Henry who was attempting to kiss her. Which would be extremely traumatizing for a young woman to be assaulted by a servant. I honestly believe he called her ugly because Henry doesn't know how to handle rejection and that would have been humiliating from his perspective. I honestly believe the only reason why Anne of Cleves ended up being treated so well was because of these factors: 1. If she was treated poorly that would have been really bad since their marriage was supposed to help relations with Germany. 2. She liked King Henry and was nice to him. (She probably felt bad for ruining his fantasy and she received a lot of wealth from their relationship.) 3. She wanted to be Queen again, but Henry repeatedly rejected her which (in my opinion) was because of what happened with their first meeting.

[@vysharra]

@@Cat-rr3ey there is a lot of debate. I’m aware of the story about him disguising himself in an attempt to act out a medieval romance. But what strikes me is the words he uses to describe her could easily be someone honestly describing him (aged, fat, sagging, ‘ugly’). It feels very revealing. My personal theory is that he was projecting his own insecurities about no longer being a dashing, handsome potent man onto Anne.

[@blacktigerpaw1]

@@vysharra if he didn't suffer his traumatic brain injury he still would've been big - Plantagenet and Norman bloodline produced unusually tall men - but would've had a dad bod. He wouldn't had some gut but would've kept muscle tone. He loved hunting and sport.

[@AlexDincht]

“Spoiler alert: I'm not wholly convinced that throughout all of history the pictorial representation of the human figure has ever promised to be a representation of reality.” Thanks. THANKS. Louder, please!

[@danone2414]

we artist: "what have been telling you all along???🤷🏻‍♂️ our thing is make new realities. not portrait accurately... that's on scientific artist and even so!"

[@snowflake8629]

@@danone2414 ikr why are people only just discovering that pictures and photos can be tampered with...

[@TristouMTL]

"Spoiler Alert: I'm not wholly convinced that throughout all of history the pictorial representation of the human figure has ever promised to be a representation of reality." ❤ ❤ ❤

[@lillianb8762]

My old art teacher did photo-retouching for people up until photoshop made her job 'redundant.' It's amazing the kind of manipulation a skilled artist can do without digital software.

[@ethanschobernd3028]

I’m sure the Edwardian women in the sample photos were thinking, “Ahh, yes! I dream to be previewed in a KZbin video one day! Please display me on a cellular device!” 🤣🤣

[@hameley12]

You just made my day much brighter! I had to put my mobile phone down before laughing... 😅 😢 😂 😂 The wonders of what if.... Have a wonderful week!

[@Langwidere903]

Like many others here, I always just assumed it was the poor clarity of the photos that made the skin look so even. I didn’t think old cameras had the resolution to show small wrinkles and freckles, which they obviously did! So weird. I also never thought about painted portraits being an idealized and perfected version of the person’s appearance

[@jenniferc9002]

“She’s missing, like 12 ribs!” Ty for the laugh and bringing some reality to what has often been overlooked and so widely accepted as normal for historical photos.

[@brittnikay613]

You've very casually stumbled across thesis research level material. Damn.

[@katbairwell]

I have literally been awake all night with severe pain and muscle spasms. Looking for something to watch at 7am that would actually lift my mood seemed impossible, but Ms Banner you are a weaver of magic, a teacher, an entertainer, and my gosh if I were a younger woman your style would be my lifegoal. Thank you for being you

[@jennieeveleighlamond]

As a freckly, freckly person with very visible scars I really appreciated the conversation about skin texture. I have struggled with accepting my skin my whole life, since I do not and cannot achieve an even skin texture.

[@GoodPersonTestWebsite]

Freckles are beautiful :) Scars can be interesting conversation starters ;)

[@jennieeveleighlamond]

@@GoodPersonTestWebsite Thank you for the kind comment, it has been a hard road to accepting my skin. I have yet to learn to love it.

[@GoodPersonTestWebsite]

@@jennieeveleighlamond My dad has a lot of freckles and I always wanted them growing up but that's not what the Lord gave me and that's okay 🥰

[@jennieeveleighlamond]

@@GoodPersonTestWebsite Seeing my daughter grow with my freckles has made me more accepting of myself. I also had an artist I love cover a lot of my scars with tattoos of flowers, which helped me to accept those areas of my body.

[@TheAgeofFabulous]

I love knowing that the Victorian’s were just as vain us to the point that they were willing to get their pics touched up. I wonder if this was a conversation over tea…. Mildred: “I just got a new tin type taken the other day” Beatrice: “Oh, did you get that crooked nose taken care of?” Mildred: “Oh yes! And all that baby weight from the 8 kids GONE! Just slipped the photographer a little something plus told him I had some ‘hysteria’ I needed taken care of…” ;)

[@aeromodeller1]

Tintypes would be harder to manipulate. It is a direct, unique image. No negative. Typically finished in ten minutes and immediately given to the customer. They were the Polaroids of the time. Wet collodion negatives on glass and nitrate, later acetate, film negatives were commonly touched up.

[@audrey5941]

I feel like I just enjoyed a Masters thesis. The fact that you can toss content this well researched as effortlessly as a salad is nothing short of astounding. Beautifully done and absolutely thought provoking. You, ma’am are fabulous.

[@OofusTwillip]

The issue of idealized artistic renderings even affected royalty: Henry the VIII and Anne of Cleves.

[@mariemcgowan-irving6156]

This was EXACTLY what I thought about all through this video!

[@dees3179]

Yes, it’s known as propaganda. Goes right back to Bronze Age coinage. Archaeological degree. Mind was blown.

[@echothenardier8053]

Does this video change the context of the House Of Holbein song from Six, because the nine inch waist line from the song, along with the corset lines around it may be acting like the portraits were realistic? Like, wouldn’t the 9-inch line be offset by the fact of the illusions that the dress was made to create?

[@LariTanner]

Not to mention the Prince Regent. I was in an English Lit class when our prof mentioned the Prince Regent had a double chin and wore very high collars to cover this and his portraits always made him thinner than he really was. Could be why the cravat was popular in the Regency era?? I know Bernadette will know! ;)

[@adedow1333]

And Holbein didn't know how to paint ugly...she was still really cute, portrait aside!

[@Bianca_Toeps]

If you feel insecure by images in magazines or on social media, I think it would be a good idea to just go to a busy place and sit on a bench for few hours, looking at all the real, actual people that pass by.

[@zekec6088]

Always a good idea

[@riverx6802]

I feel the same way!

[@kathycarey2996]

Oh now I'm going to look at old pictures of my ancestors to see if they were touched up. Very interesting!

[@vonniebunny8049]

I often wonder this about the later portraits of Henry the 8th. If THAT'S the flattering painting of him what on earth did he really look like?!

[@saymyname2417]

I guess that Holbein's famous portrait is quite accurate because it was done in Henry's prime. The real life "portrait of Dorian Gray" effect set in some years later. But - being a king - what he really looked like was really unimportant. And the last of his wives' problems...

[@maxwellstefan8868]

i mean I think it's important to remember beauty standards are not constant and different people wanted different things out of their portraits. Henry the 8th was a king and probably the most important thing he wanted in his portraits was to look like a strong and powerful leader and from that perspective I think his depiction makes sense and is in fact quite flattering; large and imposing and covered in riches.

[@saymyname2417]

@@maxwellstefan8868 - This is EXACTLY what Henry wanted: to look powerful and potent, as if he could uproot an oak. Holbein had done a portrait of him before and Henry loathed it because he felt he wasn't depicted as powerful as he should be. So Holbein painted a new one and THAT is the famous portrait of him we all know.

[@ValeriePallaoro]

@@saymyname2417 Thanks. Interesting point to know. It's a very commanding painting, and probably only seen by nobles (and the odd servant) so it's a depiction of what was thought wealthy and powerful at the time. Your words are much appreciated.

[@saymyname2417]

@@ValeriePallaoro - Thanks, Valerie! As far as I know the painting was really meant to impress and show the king as super powerful. Which is why Henry despised the first version so much. I guess Holbein wasn't aware of its purpose. I have no idea right now where the portrait was hung but it must have been a prominent place so people could stare at it in awe.