Ever wonder why you can’t seem to get the results you’re looking for with diet and exercise programs? Why you’re always the before picture and never the after picture?
I may have the answer, and it isn’t pretty.
Before (left). Before (right).
It’s no secret that “Before & After” pictures are carefully manipulated. The Before picture is as unflattering as possible, usually taken of an unsmiling subject without makeup, bathed in harsh light. The After picture, on the other hand, features soft lighting, a smiling subject who has had a complete makeover, a flattering pose, and presumably the best outcome possible. That’s why such pictures often feature a tiny caption that says “Results not typical.”
Let’s briefly examine our Before & After shots above. In between, she had a wardrobe change: the shorts in the Before picture were too small, plus she’s obviously not exactly sucking in her stomach, is she? By changing to a better fitting pair for the After shot, the flab spilling over the waistband is magically gone. Her second pose separates her legs so that – voila! – her thighs no longer touch. The jutting hip accentuates curves that seemingly weren’t there before, and the hand-on-the-hip pose creates space between body and arm that also didn’t appear in the first picture. The After hairstyle is simple, sleek and stylish, sending the subtle message that the slimmer figure is already beginning to transform her life. All in all, it’s not a drastic transformation, but the improvements are definitely noticeable.
The two pictures above are typical “Before” and “After” pictures. They are unretouched, not Photoshopped, and are the same woman in both pictures.
Oh, one more thing about these two pictures: they were taken 15 minutes apart. The model wanted to expose how easily Before & After shots can be manipulated, even without Photoshop.
So the next time you wonder why you can’t look like the model in an “After” photo…. maybe you already do and you just didn’t know it.