I’m not real big on photographing people…

But, you know… sometimes it’s nice to try new things.

Steven wanted some profile pictures for Facebook, so I obliged.

The reason I don’t really care much for photographing people is that I prefer more literal photos of people, and more artistic photos of non-people. Unfortunately, a lot of folks don’t like real literal photos of themselves (I don’t either, for that matter). So, now you’re having to do a lot of touch up and composing on the photos, and this takes a lot of time. Not only does it take a lot of time, but you also have to be careful to ensure that the result still looks like the person in the photo. That’s a fine balance to have to strike, and I admit that I’m not real practiced at it.

All that aside, portrait work can be rewarding. It’s tough, but when you get a good result (and I don’t claim that I have here) it’s very satisfying.

On the topic of retouching portraits, I stumbled onto a couple of really cool tutorials/videos today, by way of http://www.ilovephotography.com.

First is a site with some great tutorials of how to do skin work, and other touch up stuff. You’ll be shocked at the adjustments and how they are made. The techniques are great.

http://www.christyschuler.com/retouching

From her site, she also links to a really neat video which will show you just how much work can be / is done on a person before you see their face on a magazine cover/billboard.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/bblank.asp?id=6895

Now, here are my most recent work. I’m putting up some before editing shots just to show the differences in what comes out of a camera compared to what I consider “finished”.

Facebook’s Targeted Ads

Don’t you love these things?

I pulled up my profile today, and FB plopped in this on the side to greet me.

The title was “Flabby 27 year old?”

What’s funny is that below each ad, you can click a link that takes you to more ads. I got curious. Turns out, that ad above doesn’t say “27 and Overweight?” when you look there. I think that’s because you can report inappropriate ads, and that might look a bit like a condescending tagline. So, on the ad page, it just talks about energy drinks.

They certainly feel justified in calling me chubby on my own page, however.

Some of the other ads I’ve had were for “Coeds” or “Gay and Single in New York.” Obviously, the first one would presumably take you to pornography or things of that nature. I really don’t want to speculate on the other one.

The thing that bothers me is that these ads are obviously targeted at me because Facebook knows my age, sex, and relationship status. I mean… that’s a bit intrusive, I feel. Not to mention that I’m straight like a machinist’s edge (queue “straight pride” fistpump). So, they certainly missed on orientation.

But the real humor in the situation, to me, is that if you were to use these types of inflections in your workplace, you’d be fired in heartbeat. If I presented someone a card insinuating that they were fat, or asked if they were interested in a homosexual encounter, or proffered free porn (or things of that nature) they wouldn’t be able to get me out the door fast enough.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care. If that happened to me in the workplace, I’d probably just laugh. But American culture is declining toward a situation where in ten years we’ll have to hand someone a note asking for their signature of permission before we can wish them “Good Morning!” I mean, you can’t really do or say anything publicly anymore. Not anything with meaning at any rate. I think this is why all our politicians seem so fake. They aren’t able to actually talk like real people without being lambasted for it. I’ll get into that later.

Advertising though… it’s a bastion of free speech and expression, even if what it expresses is dumber than a box of hair.

So, what are the stupid/inappropriate ads you’ve had targeted at you?