Biracial girl photoshopped to be 'beautiful' for every country

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Sunday, September 14, 2014
Same woman photoshopped to be 'beautiful' in 25 different countries. Click through to see the results.
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Biracial girl photoshopped to be 'beautiful' for every countrySame woman photoshopped to be 'beautiful' in 25 different countries. Click through to see the results.
Priscilla Yuki Wilson

Priscilla Yuki Wilson, a young biracial woman, sent an unaltered photo of herself to 30 Photoshop experts from more than 25 different countries around the world. Her request? "Make me beautiful." Knowing that each artist would infuse their own cultural concepts of beauty into the final image, Wilson compiled the results to see how beauty is perceived from around the world.

Her question? Where does a multicultural woman fit in to these standards?

Before and After Part Two, inspired by a similar photo art project done earlier this year, reflects Wilson's personal struggles of having to adjust her natural appearance to fit into a single ethnic background while being of both Japanese and black heritage.

"I was taught that my natural self did not comply with conventional standards set forth by society, saying fairer skin is better, straighter hair is more attractive, and that skinny tastes good," wrote Wilson.

"The question 'what are you?' regularly influences how I experience the world. It serves as a reminder that I am living in a culture that's still adjusting to my kind of face."

This photo project was inspired by another done by Esther Honig earlier this year, Before and After, in which the Kansas City journalist had a single photo of herself photoshopped from individuals in more than 40 different countries. Find that story in the sidebar to the right, or the photos down below.

Wilson decided to reproduce Honig's project because "I wanted to see how a face like mine would be transformed on the digital surgical table."

The results range from subtle to radical changes, some of them shocking in pale contrast to Wilson's original photo. Regardless of the photoshop skill or personal taste, the changes are worth examining.

See Honig's Before and After photos here.

"Photoshop allows us to achieve our unobtainable standards of beauty, but when we compare those standards on a global scale, achieving the ideal remains all the more elusive," wrote Honig in regards to her original project.

Which do you think is the most beautiful? Let us know in the comments below.

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