Journalist Ester Honig has gone viral with her "Before and After" campaign, which aims to reveal contrasting cultural perceptions of beauty by revealing her face made over by graphic designers from around the world.
if you haven't seen it in Time or InStyle or any of the other sites posting it, the photo series has as its "before" shot an image of Honig barefaced with her hair in a bun and "after" photos yielding the varying Photoshop touch-ups of professional designers.
Honig said that she used freelancing platforms, like Fiverr to contract nearly 40 individuals, from more than 25 countries. "Some are experts in their field, others are purely amateur," she clarified.
See what you think. I myself am more impressed by the freelance writer's clever self-promotion. She lured prominent publications to her site by seizing on our obsession with beauty and vanity — and our insatiable need for instant-gratification web distractions — hey, she got my attention.
While the purported designers chose noteworthy differences in eyebrow fullness, feature alteration, bling and fashion, their wildly varying Photoshop skills is what's most striking. The series offers odd choices of color (really, Australia?), questionable use of the brush tool and a recurring fetish for frosted lipstick.