Coco Gauff Photo Shopped Pics

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I think Vogue photo-shopped some of Coco Gauff's pics, distorting her legs.

Coco Gauff, the American tennis star is on a Vogue cover. That’s why I picked it up from a magazine rack and proceeded to cashiers. However, when I got home, the air went out of the balloon. The magazine doctored Coco Gauff’s body.

Good news first. The photo with her parents and brothers is picture perfect. I hope she puts it in a frame and place it on the mantel, if stores still sell photo frames. The three other pics are problematic. The make-up is over the top. The intention of make-up is to enhance a woman’s features and also hide blemishes here and there. It is not to change the skin colour. Vogue has featured black personalities before and they did a decent make-up job on Lupita N’yongo, one of the Black Panther stars. Maybe she brought her own make-up. That is what some black women do now, tell magazines and film directors they’ll do their own make-up.

In this Vogue issue, the make-up on Coco where she is wearing a gold dress is so much, she can hardly keep her eyes open. The next two pics changed her body completely. They  were doctored with some software. Her thighs in the white dress picture do not look the same and they are exaggerated. They don’t correspond with the leg. Vogue will probably plead creative photography, but distorting how a person looks to create ‘an illusion of speed,’ will not fly. Coco Gauff is a tennis star, so we know how she looks.

Vogue did the same thing on pages 80-81, thighs are not the same size. To add insult to injury, the photo interferes with the secret area, women hide from the public. We expect Vogue to respect our bodies, and not have photographers sit on the floor and shoot us from underneath there, then air brush it digitally. Give us the same photography respect you give  men.

It is not creative licence, if it jumps at you. It is wrong. Yes, Vogue will become lyrical about how the magazine wanted to portray Coco’s strength and general athleticism, but it is distortion to the reader. Her picture with her family is excellent, that is what readers will appreciate. They don’t have to rack their brain about her body, if the legs and thighs are a cut-and-paste job, or not.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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