When we wrote about SantaCon the other day, we didn’t know that the most startling participating Santa was a Berkeleyan.
Brody S., who doesn’t want her full name used, dressed up as “Desaturated Santa” for the second year and attended the mass Santa gathering in San Francisco. Although the photo above seems like it must be digitally altered, Brody made the gray Santa suit and then found make-up that would match her skin color to the suit.
You can find the full set of Desaturated Santa photos on Brody’s Flickr pages and an explanation on her blog from her first foray last year:
Many people find it hard to believe that someone would go to all the effort of creating a gray & white Santa suit and painting their face, when it’s “so much easier just to do it in Photoshop”. (Yes, but where’s the fun in THAT? Heck, why visit Paris when I can just Photoshop myself in front of a picture of the Eiffel Tower?)
I think this also speaks not only to the prevalence and ease of digital manipulation in daily life, but also that it’s perhaps replacing authentic experiences in some areas? It’s easier, faster and cheaper to use a green screen, to use Photoshop to desaturate or to add crazy color…but I’d rather travel, sew and paint, or get naked and bodypainted anytime.
