The Touchy Subject of Kelly Clarkson's Retouching

It's all over the news so I thought I'd mention the extremely important controversy over the retouching of Kelly Clarkson on the cover of Self magazine. I can't legally show any pictures of her but if you want to see actual behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot in question you can go here.

I'll let you decide if Self went too far in this case, but it's true that photographers often touch up images, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Usually it's to remove a skin blemish, that kind of thing, and I don't see what's wrong with that since a blemish is only temporary anyway. And the wonders of retouching allow you to look at the picture of me at right without turning into stone.

Kelly Clarkson, if you remember, is famous for being the first winner of American Idol, and while I really can't show any images of her, I can show the first winner of Canadian Idol, Ryan Malcolm, performing with a stripped down version of his band Low Level Flight in east Toronto.