Recently, H&M decided to take a new turn for their recent campaign.
If you look closely, you’ll see a similarity. Notice it yet? That’s right, their poses are exactly the same.
This isn’t a coincidence.
“The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted.” – Source
To my horror, I found out that they used computer generated models to fit their clothes on and showcase for their campaign!
A few years ago, people used to joke that computers would replace the job of the photographer. This was the first step in that direction.
Now before we get ahead of ourselves, keep in mind that this won’t happen as fast as we’re thinking, or even at all.
The obvious reality is it’s also expensive generating these figures. Also, you can’t recreate the dynamic poses models provide. They have their own character and there’s no replacing that ‘essence’
So photography is safe, there’s just so much more going on in a photograph in an entire shoot than you can’t recreate. This new concept may take a hold in catalog work, but not for, say, editorial work or lifestyle work, and not to mention never for photojournalism.
So for now, the future of retouching is safe as we hope this doesn’t start becoming the norm.
The main issue here is more so the ethical aspect of it and the shock value of what they did. The sad part is the general public wouldn’t even notice.
However, it may be important to start learning CG programs to stay ahead of the curve, because just like how film evolved to digital, retouching may evolve to the expectancy of knowing how to do CG work as well.
Only time will tell how this progresses.
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