an article by Lauren Collins from The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins
My thoughts:
Pascal Dangin is clearly an intelligent man and he seems to have considered the social repercussions of his actions but he still continues his work within the fashion industry. He cites that he is simply providing the supply for a demand. I don't strictly disagree with him but an argument could be made that he has some sort of moral obligation to his culture, community and peers to improve the lot of the individual in society. Dangin seems to have compromised by insisting upon anatomic limitations to his photo manipulation, however he acknowledges that his work presents an unrealistic standard of beauty.
An uneasy comparison could be made between the work Dangin creates and other industries associated with negative social impact, such as firearms, The guns that Smith and Wesson creates have the potential to ruin lives but (I believe, perhaps naively) this negative impact lies in the application of the technology. Dangin's work does not end lives but it has the potential to create, in an individual, a negative self-image that reduces quality of life.
If his retouched images were presented in a manner that makes their unnaturalness apparent, not through appearance (which is already the case), but through forum and commentary the social ills correlated to work such as his might be mitigated or somewhat reduced.
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