(firenze) tuscany # 43 ~ WARNING
Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 10:43AM 
Window shopping ~ Firenze, Tuscany • click to embiggenAs the Curtis Mayfield gospel song, People Get Ready, goes:
People get ready
There's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board ...
...There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne
It's a song about the chance for redemption and I bring it up as introduction to what will mostly be an edict from the Kingdom's throne that touches upon an issue that is near and dear to my Landscapist heart. From a NY Times article:
Concerned that girls and women feel excessive pressure to live up to the digitally Botoxed and liposuctioned images of human perfection they see in glossy magazines, lawmakers in Britain and France are trying to push advertisers to get real.
Under their proposals, ads containing altered photos of models would be required to carry disclaimers.
In France last week, Valerie Boyer, a lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, introduced a similar bill in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.
She argued that altered images were undermining young women’s ability to control their own destinies. “These photos can lead people to believe in realities that, very often, do not exist”...
In her quest to rid the media of misleading images, Ms. Boyer wants to go even further than the Liberal Democrats in Britain. Her bill would require warning labels on retouched photos published for editorial purposes as well as those in print ads. Violators could face fines of 37,500 euros, or almost $55,000, or up to 50 percent of the cost of an advertisement.
Well scratch my back with a hacksaw - I never thought that I would live to see the day when this would happen. Of course, I probably won't live to see that day in my part of the planet. As one photographer who did not think that the curbs would have the desired effect said, "Unfortunately, we are living in a retouched world."
If anyone is living in a "retouched world", the citizens of the good 'ole United Corporation of America are way out ahead of the field on this one.
Consequently, I will not be holding my breath waiting for warning labels to appear on most of the "nature" pictures that the camera club crowd - the hopeless sinners - so loves to make. A label that might read something like:
WARNING: Viewing Eco Porn has been determined to lead people to believe in realities that, very often, do not exist. Repeated exposure to these materials causes mental and emotional damage which may cause irreparable harm to the planet.
A warning label that should be on every Sierra Club calendar ever printed. And, yes, also every Adirondack Life calendar ever printed as well.
Reader Comments (2)
A warning that would have been on the postcards of the Tuscany you were seeking.
Where would it end? Every house and garden magazine would have to carry disclaimers such as "in order to make this room look this way, the occupants of the home put all their stuff in a storage shed," or "it costs $$$ to maintain a landscape that looks like this..."
We all have our fantasies and they do not rise and fall on digital retouching.
Yep, but fantasy should always be kept at arms lenght from reality... Just my 2 cents.
The problem will always be where to draw the line, but that's just the way it is. Having some degree of intellectual capacity will always lead to discovering two new problems when trying to solve one. The world isn't black and white, even though society tries to teach everybody that it is so. Better to be safe than sory. If in doubt, use a disclaimer. While not solving the entire problem, having a few rotten apples in the basket is better than a basket full of them.