Editing more than words

I’ve been thinking all week how editing works its way into our lives.  Last week in class, Sandy brought up a really interesting point about editing a debate.  I never thought about that before, I mean editing outside of writing.  But editing is a part of everything we do.  We edit our lives by keeping secrets and deciding whom we share them with. 

We also edit photographs.  We shape the poses and gestures of the models so they tell a story the way the photographer wants.  We edit photos to show perfection or the impossible.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.  This class is called Editing for Print and Online Media and my class after is called Image Editing. 

And that’s precisely what we do.  We’ve learnt how to create one holistic image out of many different images, and we’ve learnt how to manipulate objects and people to make them look exactly how we want.  The image editor can take off years or pounds or blemishes simply by clicking on the right tool. 

It’s amazing the amount of editing in suspected and unsuspected places, and it’s amazing how it can affect people in different ways.  By re-touching a model a girl can feel ashamed about herself and idealize a look that’s impossible to achieve.  But by putting together images of hungry children people feel inclined to give and that child gets a second chance.