A Photoshop fail in advertising or branding doesn't normally make the headlines these days. Some dodgy editing even gets blamed on AI (just see the controversy over the Fantastic Four poster). But it's not every day that an image gets banned partly due to digital manipulation.
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told the high street retailer Next to remove a piece of publicity because the imagery made the model look “unhealthily thin”. And the decision raises questions for fashion photography in general.
The ASA received a complaint that the image promoting Next's “Power Stretch Denim Leggings” was irresponsible because of how thin the model looks. The retailer argued that it used a range of models with different body shapes, including plus size models. It said the model in this image had a “healthy and toned physique" and that her proportions were “balanced” given her height (5ft 9in).
Next also denied digitally re-touching the model's appearance, but it admitted that the image had been digitally altered to make the leggings look longer and to make them the focus of the shot "while avoiding any exaggeration of her body shape”. However, the ASA ruled that while the model's slimness had been exaggerated.
But it wasn't all the fault of digital alteration. The ASA also criticised the camera angle. It took the view that shooting from low down with what was probably quite a wide lens “accentuated the model's already tall physique".
“Because the pose, camera angle and styling in the ad investigated strongly emphasised the slimness of the model’s legs, we considered that the ad gave the impression that the model was unhealthily thin,” it said. “We concluded that the ad was irresponsible. The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Next to ensure that the images in their ads were prepared responsibly and did not portray models as being unhealthily thin.”
This isn't the first time the ASA has banned a fashion ad for making a model look too thin. It's previously criticised heavy-handed airbrushing and other digital manipulation as well as exaggerated makeup. But this is the first time that I've heard a camera angle being blamed in addition to post-production.
The distortion produced by wide angle lenses is often something Photographers try to avoid in portraits, but it's also been used for creative effect since the 19th century. Social media influencers have also caught on to the trick of using their phone's 0.5 lens to give them an apparently slimmer profile (see our pick of the best camera phones and prices below). The ASA's decision now raises the question of whether brands need to avoid certain camera positions and lenses as well as poses and over editing to avoid distorting a model's proportion.
