“Make me beautiful.” That’s the simple instructions Esther Honig sent with her un-altered portrait to Photoshop enthusiasts around the world. What the Kansas City-based freelance journalist received back is an insightful and sometimes startling observation on beauty standards across various cultures… as well as a hilarious look at what can qualify as “Photoshop skills.”
“Seeing some jobs for the first time made me shriek… Other times images, like the one from Morocco, took my breath away because they were far more insightful than I could have expected,” Honig told Buzzfeed.
Honig’s ongoing project is called Before & After. It’s an idea that came to her when she was introduced by her boss to the international (and very budget) freelancing site Fiverr. There she noticed a large portion of the skills being offered were for work with Photoshop. Because the pool of workers was spread around the world, she figured it would serve as an excellent gauge of aesthetic preferences across cultures. Looking at her results, we’d have to agree.
Esther Honig’s original, unaltered photograph
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Chile
Germany
Greece
India
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Kenya
Morocco
Pakistan
Philippines
Romania
Serbia
Sri Lanka
U.K.
Ukraine
USA
Venezuela
Vietnam