Iskra Lawrence Photoshops Her Body in 10 Minutes, to Prove How Common It Is

For celebrities and models in Hollywood, Photoshop is just a part of the job. Because the industry chooses to alter images frequently, celebrities like Lena Dunham and Meghan Trainor have opened up to fans about their dislike of the practice, making it known that the images people see are not entirely real.

Meanwhile, a whole other world has been more secretive about its photo-altering practices: social media. With the rise of social media stars, more and more people have accepted their images as “real” and “natural,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Body-positive model Iskra Lawrence decided it was time to speak out on the issue, in a side-by-side photograph of herself with and without any image alterations. The post, which has been liked over 129,000 times already, shows how only 10 minutes of Photoshop can give a user an entirely new look. See it for yourself, below:

(Image courtesy of Instagram/iamiskra)

Iskra captioned the post: “it only took me about 10 minutes to photoshop myself to ‘perfection’. But WTF is perfect? We weren’t born thinking flaws made you less beautiful we are taught by society and the media that we should feel insecure about our flaws so we buy into certain products etc to ‘improve’ or attain perfection. I wanted to post the unretouched pic right next to the retouched one so you could see the impact of how a few edits all done on my phone can completely change the way someone looks. I can’t leave home everyday retouched & live in the ‘real world’ airbrushed, so why would I want to pretend to be online? we are beautiful because we are us and we are so much more than our appearance. I hope when you see what looks like perfect flawless images of ppl online you don’t not ever feel insecure or less beautiful because it’s not real. What’s real is you and you are good enough cus those ‘flaws’ make you completely unique.”

Iskra already discussed the pressure to be skinny in a feature with Women’s Health UK, so this recent Instagram post is simply another example of her efforts to end body-shaming and help others recognize that all body shapes are beautiful.

Iskra isn’t alone on this front. Other famous faces have begun speaking out against both body-shaming and Photoshop. Supermodel Ashley Graham is one of the most outspoken on this issue, promoting acceptance of your body for what it is, rather than trying to Photoshop it into what it’s not, especially in a recent essay she wrote for Lenny Letter on the topic.

Kudos to Iskra for her efforts to promote the body-positive movement. As more high-profile stars do the same, people will eventually begin to view online images for what they are — fake.

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