Would someone please airbrush me?

I’ve never had good skin.

Ever.

Even after three rounds of Accutane, I still break out as bad as I did in middle school.

But you’d never be able to tell by looking at my Facebook. Because I’ve photoshopped unflattering pictures of me for as long as I can remember.

No, I don’t have massive identity issues.

I like who I am and how I look.

I just prefer not to be seen with zits.

It’s not like I perform virtual plastic surgery every time I fix a picture. I simply smooth out the major blemishes on my face. It takes two minutes at most. But to me, it makes a huge difference.

And I’m not alone.

Because airbrushing isn’t just for the stars anymore. It’s for people like us.

Last week, the New York Times reported that photo retouching was becoming increasingly common in school portraits.

And it’s no surprise why.

At an age when individuals are incredibly sensitive about their appearance, it makes sense that parents would pay any price for a retouch option that could remove blemishes, cowlicks and scars from students’ faces. 

The act of photo retouching is nothing new.

In the 1940s, trained artists would paint over pimples by hand. Today, Lifetouch, Inc (a company that snaps more than 30 million student portraits each year) uses image editing software to retouch individuals’ school photos.

Indeed, the company estimates that 10 percent of elementary aged children have their photos retouched. In high school, about half of all school portraits are retouched.
While some raise the flag of concern, suggesting that parents who choose to retouch their children’s photos might be contributing to negative self image and low self esteem, I beg to differ. Airbrushing is God’s gift to memory.

Who wouldn’t want a nice Gaussian blur to cover the sting of middle school bullies? Or to smooth out the scar of high school insecurity?

We need to know and love who we are, but we don’t have to stare at it every time we open the photo album.

Maybe I don’t mind airbrushing photos because my memories have already been retouched.

I don’t remember the zit you had on Halloween or your massive pit stains after Little 5.
And I’d hope that you wouldn’t remember mine.

When I flip back through the album of our friendship, I want the focus to be on what was said, done, felt, enjoyed — not on our looks.

And by airbrushing images that might have caused the attention to be placed on a particular bodily imperfection (a stray zit, a dangling boogie, etc.) I’m truly directing our attention toward what’s most important: our time together.

Who wants presence of a zit in a photo to trigger memories of the overwhelming stress and embarrassment felt before the party, when there are so many more wonderful things to remember about the party itself?

Photos exist to capture memories, not destroy them.

And a little bit of airbrushing goes a long way in ensuring that what I remember is what’s worth remembering.


E-mail: tycherne@indiana.edu