"Selfie-Harm"

An awesome photographer in my town, Lance Tilford Photography, shared an article on Facebook last week about a project done by a British photographer Rankin. In the article it talks about the huge changes social media can make in teens when it comes to self-image. The photographer asked 15 teenagers to edit pictures he took of them to make them the way they would want them to look to post on social media. The project is called “Selfie Harm” and if you look at the photos, it is crazy how much they were Photoshopped. He said that most of the teens preferred their original picture anyway! So, it is really sad that people know or think they need to change their face to look a certain way, almost like a cartoon character, to post on social media instead of using the picture of themselves they liked better. He calls what they did “hyper-retouching.”

I have worked with Lance before and he has taken some of my favorite pictures and headshots! He definitely does retouching but I have never felt like he changed me to look totally different than who I am, and I wouldn’t want that. I don’t think it’s a big deal to use a filter for fun, or take pictures of yourself that are from an angle that makes you feel good, or to make the lighting in a picture better or smooth out a zit. But if you don’t even recognize yourself in the picture that is a problem. It’s not good for your self-image and self-esteem to look like a robot. The organization I am a national ambassador for, Smart Girl Society, works hard to stress that authenticity on social media is so important, and I have articles on their website that talk about this. You can check them out at www.smartgirlsociety.org.

You can see the article and some of the photos from the “Selfie Harm” project at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/rankin-selfie-harm-1457959 .

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