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As bad as it sounds, I used to wear Old Spice when I was in college.  Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t explain it myself. ;)  These commercials, starring Bruce Campbell, are just freakin’ awesome!  There is a reason he’s got a cult-like following…

If you are at all interested in photography and how photographers market themselves to buyers, this is a great site to see, Art Department Photography.  They have some seriously huge names on their site, and you’re going to recognize many of their iconic images as soon as you see them. 

This video clip is part of an ad campaign run by Dove, the soap people.  Instead of using professional supermodels, with their extraordinary bodies, this campaign uses “real” women instead.  I think supermodels are hot, but I have to admit that I think this campaign does a great job pointing out that real women are sexy too.  This particular ad, however, is something special.  Doing photography, I’m well aware of the ability to make images that are part reality and part fantasy.  The ability of advertising to shape the self-image of young women, and men for that matter (think Men’s Health), lies in the assumption that this beauty is real.  We all know, but often don’t stop to think about it, that it’s not.  This ad does a great job of showing how unreal beauty ads are.

As a photographer, I’ve rewound and watched the photoshop portion of the video about 20 times.  How big of a geek does that make me?