What is Beauty?
The concept of beauty has been severely distorted in recent times. Thanks to social media, there is an unending pressure to attain an unrealistic beauty ideal. Moreover, we as Nigerian photographers have begun to pride ourselves solely in our ability to retouch an image. How far is too far in a bid to please our clients? Where do we draw the line as photographers? Are we not fueling these desires for unnatural perfection by creating alternate realities?
Perfection is a myth. Why do we filter reality? Life doesn’t come with presets. Every wrinkle, pore and pimple tell a story. Without them we lose our personal identity. Is this what clients really want or what we make them believe they want? It’s painful to see women highly accomplished in their respective fields worry so much about a minor wrinkle as though an unblemished skin and perfect figure is more important than the feats they have achieved in their respective careers. As photographers, are we not to capture accurate representations of time? Isn’t there perfection in the imperfection?
As I progress in my photography journey, I begin to question my role in this problem. Am I not a part of the growing global issue? Am I not fueling this unending quest for unrealistic and unattainable beauty?
We spend hours dodging and burning, altering skin tones, frequency separating, like virtual plastic surgeons. A few nips and tucks here and there to make the client look just perfect. What happens to my daughter in a few years when she begins to question her sense of self-worth based off of images depicted in magazines. Images of unnatural and unattainable perfection that perhaps I helped to create, women perfectly airbrushed and contoured? How do I tell my daughter that she is beautiful just as she is? How do I tell her it is all a mirage and I have in my own way contributed to this problem? How do I tell her that her beauty is in her self-worth, in her strength of character, her courage, her smile, not in how perfect her skin looks?
Otome Onoge is an Editorial, Fashion and Portrait Photographer based out of Abuja, Nigeria. She was an exhibitor at the 2019 Business of Photography Exhibition and is the Lead Photographer at Yard 33 Bespoke Photography. You can connect with her on Instagram here.
