Like most tools photography can be used for good and bad.  So what do I mean? Well, you can use a hammer to hang a beautiful picture on a wall or you can use it to damage something or someone.

Likewise we can use photographs to document history, decorate our walls, illustrate instructions, remember our loved ones, as evidence in court, to identify (people, places and things), in scientific research and to advertise goods and services. But photos can also be used to malign and defraud people.

The point of today’s post isn’t to discuss the paparazzi  and how they sometimes overstep their bounds or to discuss photos that have been manipulated in software like Photoshop to perpetrate a hoax, but to talk about a photo technique we as photographers use everyday to make people look their best and how this same technique is frequently used for false advertising.

Before the days of photo manipulation software photographers used makeup, lighting techniques and filters for glamour shots. Today we still use all of these resources, but the one I want to talk about is lighting.  We make models look good by throwing plenty of light on them. We even intentionally overexpose them.

Why? Because it hides skin imperfections by reducing the shadow details. This makes complexions look younger and smoother.  And after all it is our job to cast our subjects in the best light. But when this same technique is used to sell you on complexion repair makeup or acne medication then I have a problem with it. I was trained as a biologist and I believe scientific experiments should not distort the facts for financial gain.

So next time you see before and after pictures used to sell you a product, in print or on TV, look carefully at the pictures and what you will see is the before picture is under exposed to increase the shadows and the after picture is slightly overexposed. In other words the before picture is darker or grayer than the after picture. The after picture is brighter or whiter than the before picture. They may even have a caption that says unretouched photo, which could well be true. But this is deceptive and unscientific.

If you want to document the legitimate benefits of an acne or wrinkle reducing cream you must shoot both the before and after pictures with the same camera, the same lens, the same subject to camera distance, the same camera settings, the same model pose with the same lights in the same positions and the same power settings. To do otherwise is false advertising!