Exercise: Improvement or Interpretation.
I took this is the portrait of a Sri Lankan farmer last year. The whites of eyes are darkened so that there is little eye definition. By lightening the whites I have lifted the pupils and given them the missing detail.
This small change has altered his character completely. Instead of the soft face of a gentle farmer we now have the staring face of fighter. This sort of alteration is, to me, not justified. It may be a believable image but it is far from true.
To draw an arbitrary line between forgery and flattery is difficult. The removing of a facial blemish from a bride I would accept, but to airbrush out every wrinkle from the face of a cosmetic model is out and out fraud. Between these extremes we all draw our own line.
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