In a cruel twist of torso, yet another Victoria’s Secret catalog lingerie model was mangled in producing the latest issue of the infamous mail-carrier stopping mail-order sales come-on. Photoshop gone bad. Christmas Specials 2009.
There must have been a desperate need, on the part of the catalog makers, to use the somewhat weak photo of this particular panty product.
Why else use the twisted torso? And then, to make matters worse, the model’s head, appears cut off, decapitated, and summarily pasted on the panty-clad human remains, in a seemingly bad Photoshop mistake worthy of a “Silence of the Lambs” sociopathic image editor.
The lovely victim is therefore pictured as if cast down and out off a cliff, by a human-caused unnatural Photoshop disaster, like the proverbial broken doll metaphor, with a neck broken by commercial greed, onto a supersoft lace imported nylon fate for everyday day comfort and indulgence, available in a fresh array of colors, only just barely worse than being edited out of the lingerie catalog entirely.
Police won’t release the name of the victim, identified here only as “B hiphugger”, until next of kin (she did come from a nice family) are notified of the heartless money-driven Photoshop mistake.
________This post has been updated________
*In response to Comment #3 below by Jorge, I added the following info and pix:
I have photographed the catalog in question to try showing the image as it is on the page, ‘in situ’.
The catalog is labeled:
CHRISTMAS SPECIALS 2009 VOL. 1 $3 U.S.
The page number is 49
Technical points:
I used an older Epson Perfection scanner (a then ‘professional’ model scanner) to scan the catalog pages.
The highest resolution is 1600. I rarely need to use a flatbed, and so haven’t upgraded it.
I have always felt that the associated scanning firmware produced a slight color profile mismatch going from Epson>Adobe and these scans reflect a slight desaturation from the catalog (which has somewhat hyper-real oversaturation).
I merely scanned the above images; cropped them; saved them as jpg’s.
I did absolutely no other editing, spotting, or other manipulations.
_________________________________________________
The images below were shot on my trusty Nikon D300 12bit NEF Lossless Compressed,
opened in Adobe Camera RAW to set white balance,
opened into PS CS4, cropped, credit text added, saved as jpg.
On 2 of these I softened the catalog recipient’s address (none of this is her fault!)
I did absolutely no other editing, spotting, or other manipulations.
The intent of this piece was really along the lines of
“gee. look at that. isn’t that mildly amusing?”
I had no intent to defame one of America’s great corporate icons of the late 20th century,
nor to impugn the dignity and skill of an uncredited image editor.
All images depicted in this article are real and factual.
The names have not been changed to protect the guilty.
No catalogs were harmed in the making of this post.
______This post has been updated, again______
Additional Update (5 December, 2009):
The same image has also been published in the
Holiday Sale 2009 catalog
on page 77
unchanged but in a slightly different page layout.
______This post has been updated, again______
Additional Update (16 January, 2010):
The image now appears along with others, decapitated in a variegated layout,
in the Semi-Annual Clothing Sale 2009 catalog.
It’s in the upper left, flipped horizontally.
Enjoy.
maybe she’s just really limber and is doing a yoga pose…..
a Hatha pose like ‘Backward Facing Dog’ ?
or ‘The Beast with No Backbone’ ?
I don’t want to break your chops here, BUT, I’d like to see the offending picture in the catalog.
I know VS uses pothoshop, I’ve seen some mistakes they made (a model in a picture has a bellybutton ring and in the opposite page she doesn’t have it… or the same picture with different clothing color) but a disaster as you show… I’ve never seen it and I refuse to believe that a million dollar company does something like that.
You mention the Christmas Specials 2009; well, I have right now in my hands the Christmas 2009 and this picture is not there; in fact, the catalog is really magazine-like quality and a scan of it would look way better than your scans. Perhaps it’s another issue, but honestly, my wife keeps all the catalogs she receives and I’ve never been able to find any of the offending pictures mentioned or show online as “disasters” like this.
I won’t believe it until a full page scan or the catalog is correctly mentioned. I know they have several catalogs from one season, but it’s too much coincidence that I’ve never seen any of those pictures.
So, what’s the catalog? Dates, name, volume page, etc?
Otherwise, I don’t believe this post.
Jorge,
I appreciate your response. You raised a good point.
I’m in the process of shooting pix of the actual catalog. (it is well before dawn here, as I write this.)
It truly had not occurred to me to ‘fake’ such a photo, as it would be so laughingly easy to do.
I will post the pix as soon as I can (it is a holiday, and I have other things going on)
Thanks again for your response,
Cheers,
Ken
As the girlfriend of the PhotographyUncapped guy, Ken, I can vouch for the pure sanctity of the Victoria’s Secret Christmas Specials 2009 catalog picture. It was actually MY catalog that arrived in the mail, which I had tossed into the recycling, since I’m going with Hanukkah lingerie this year for a
change o pace.
When I saw him taking it out, my first thought was “Hey, what are you doing with that?” But I can vouch he made no actual manipulations.
So sorry Jorge, your wife must be holding back “the good stuff” from you. Check her pile.
Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!
;>)
Ken,
My hat is off in front of you.
I’m not a believer in most online information but now I turned to be a believer in YOUR information.
I really appreciate your work and courtesy to extend the information. I will certainly be paying more attention to those catalogs. My wife didn’t receive the one you show but a larger magazine-like for Charismas which does not contain the offending picture.
I will definitely add Photography Uncapped as one of my few real information sources and extend my admiration for your understanding and accommodating work.
I am impressed VS does this kind of mistakes; BUT I am more impressed in YOUR work, attention and professionalism to go out your way to prove your work. Most people disregard criticism or get upset, you, in the other hand, acted as a professional and thinking human being.
Thank you very much and get all my admiration and respect.
Regards
Jorge
Jorge,
Thank you for your response, your support, and for your kind compliments.
I really appreciate it.
I think we got a few Victoria’s Secrets ‘Christmas’ catalogs, so I can see why you doubted the truth of my post on my site
I strive to keep all the info on my site real and truthful. There is so much poor quality work out there.
Thanks again for your comments,
Ken
@ Lee…
Ha, ha.. When she receives catalogs and fashion magz I’m the one keeping them for photography reasons, most catalogs to check photoshop techniques and mistakes and magz (mostly elle) for modeling inspiration (many ads have great photography). The problem is I can’t keep up checking them out, sorting and get rid of the not interesting ones.
Sadly, now she’s curious about the other brand you mention! Thank you!!!! from the bottom of my heart… now she’ll be shopping more! Ha, ha…
Happy holidays to you and Ken!