In our modern society; that of glossy magazine covers and the filtered corridors of carefully curated Instagram pages, a high premium is placed upon other-worldly beauty.
Of course, there are things we can do in our own lives in the vain pursuit of such effervescent perfection; we can buy the teeth whitening kits so smugly pushed on the pages of dazzling 'influencers', perhaps we could stagger, exhausted, to the gym five times a week and eat a depressingly 'clean' diet consisting of little other than lettuce and occasional salmon fillet.
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The reality, though, is that most of us have neither the time nor the inclination to do such things, and in any case, the stunningly beautiful images of perfection to which we so haplessly aspire have other things working in their favour; genetics, for one, but also camera angles, lighting and - whisper it - Photoshop.
Now more than ever before, it is important to remember that the pictures we are confronted with on social media and the magazine stands of the gas station are not reality, they are next to reality, a technicolor fiction that bares no more semblance to what we might quaintly call 'real life' than the improbable action sequences of Hollywood blockbusters.
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With that being said, Photoshopping and the careful 'touching up' of photos is a practise nearly all of us undertake, whether through the frantic testing of filters on Instagram or the careful blurring of features of which we are not so proud.
This is in many ways a sad, regrettable practice, one that eschews embracing our flaws in the pursuit of a fiction that is surely shattered each and every time we look in the mirror.
There are, you will be pleased - and perhaps a little smug - to remember, certain pitfalls in the use of Photoshop, though.
The inexperienced can quite easily butcher a perfectly lovely photograph in an attempt to iron out some quirk that no-one else would ever notice, and apparently even the professionals sometimes get it wrong.
Just take the recent cover of Vanity Fair as the perfect example. A piece entitled "The 2018 Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio: 12 Extraordinary Stars, One Momentous Year" had accrused an impressive array of talent to assemble for the all important cover shot;
Oprah Winfrey,
Nicole Kidman,
Reese Witherspoon and
Tom Hanks among them.
The picture is undoubtedly lovely and - as one more hip than I might describe - 'fierce', however fans quickly spotted a rather glaring problem with the photograph, and it had everything to do with Reese Witherspoon's legs.
Nothing aesthetically displeasing about the legs in question, you understand, but rather the number of limbs on display. You see, there were three of them.
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Thankfully, Witherspoon saw the funny side of it, tweeting in riposte; "Well...I guess everybody knows now...I have 3 legs. I hope you can still accept me for who I am".
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Kudos to Witherspoon for taking the whole thing in her stride (sorry) and let's hope Vanity Fair pay a little more attention to their 'touching up' practices in the future.
