I'm not entirely sure where to even start with this subject. Photoshop manipulation of human features is something all of us encounter every single day in every form of popular media. One thing about this guy that seemed to make him a little more legit in my eyes was the fact that he was not a photographer. In this case, Dangin is a specialist, performing a requested service on other people's work. He gets paid to do Photoshop manipulations, but the interesting thing is that people seem to trust his judgement on the manipulations more than they trust themselves. There was all this talk about how he has this "eye" for things---like how to make women more beautiful, or to sell a bottle of perfume---but it really comes down to the simple fact that this man is a virtuosic master of Photoshop. All he does is do something better and with more subtlety than anyone else. There was a passage that described him leaving an actress' imperfect teeth the way they were because they were so recognizable. "He knew better," the article reads---or something to that effect. Way to go Dangin. Does that make him something special? Maybe I just don't know enough about industry standards in fashion, but to me it seems like common sense.
I guess I just have a very dim view on the whole fashion photography thing. It's such a specialized and narrow arena for creativity, and the stakes are so high---I don't really think someone truly committed to artistic integrity could work in that kind of atmosphere. In regard to the article, I am reminded of nineteenth-century daguerreotype studios, in which the photographer was considered the craftsman and the colorist the artist. Maybe in that hyper-structured world of fashion photography he truly does have more creative license. Too bad he only gets paid to make skin look like plastic. I bet he could do great things.
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