14 DAY TRIAL // In April this year, to promote her upcoming album, Mariah Carey posed for Wonderland magazine. Controversial fashion photographer Terry Richardson was behind the lens and reaped all the praise for how beautifully he’d captured Mariah looking her best bombshell self and in a couple of intimate portraits with her twins.
The unretouched photos from the spread leaked online over the weekend and, suffice it to say, they’re not doing Mariah or Richardson any favors.
Jezebel, who also got a hold of the pics, made the before and after shots into GIFs, to better highlight the alterations made in the studio. You will find these GIFs embedded below.
It’s clear why they don’t do Mariah any favors: again, here she is wearing clothes that are at least one size too small, still trying to bare a lot of flesh when she would look just as good so much better if she dressed for her body type instead.
Indeed, she’s lost of a lot of weight after she gave birth to the twins (aka “dem babies”) and she’s itching to show off the results of her hard work, but she could do it differently, more tastefully. She could do it by dressing for her body type, and not in the same style she used to dress when she was younger and, implicitly, a much thinner figure.
However, these GIFs do even less favors to Richardson, because they prove just how much he relies on Photoshop too, while claiming differently. For an “artist” like himself, it sure looks like he uses just as much Photoshop as any other, perhaps less “skilled” photographer. The worst part about him is that he makes it a point of saying he doesn’t rely on retouching.
You are so busted, mister photographer.
“Perhaps what's most striking about these images is how much color correction is used, almost like everything in the frame (save for the white background) needed to be painted back to life. Even Mariah's makeup needed to be digitally added after getting so washed out by the flash,” Jezebel points out.
“What's supposed to be so remarkable about Richardson's signature style is how his otherwise amateur methods, when used to shoot high-profile celebs, create uniquely candid portraits that appear to be at once documentary and aspirational. His bare bones sets and harsh flashes suggest a spontaneity that is meant to imply the authenticity of that particular moment. But this doesn't seem very authentic at all,” adds the same media outlet.
When you have this amount of retouching, when virtually nothing in the frame except the white background is left untouched, you can’t really speak of spontaneity and authenticity, can you?
As for Mariah, she will come unscathed out of this. After all, we all know that she always has her promo shots digitally altered to make herself look better, so we can’t imagine anyone thought this would be the exception. A diva like her is granted a pass on this, always.
