Heart Like A Wheel photoshopped?

[travis222]

Do not know if this ever came up, but doesn't the photo used on the cover of HLAW look the least like Linda than any other LP? The neck is too long, and the face is too slim. It`s a great photo, but just seems a bit off. Even the jaw line is different. By the way, my favorite LP cover is Prisoner in Disguise...just Linda, in that dress....OMG... 

[eddiejinnj]

I am not sure what the technology would allow for in 1974 but Linda at the time of this photo was thin. If you look at the inner sleeve photo she seems kind of frail looking with her big head of hair. Her nose looks similar in the "Hummin to Myself" photo session imo. eddiejinnj

[sliderocker]

I felt the same about the front cover photo of Linda for "Heart Like a Wheel" not looking like her. For a long time, I kept wondering if it even was Linda in the photo or a ringer. Or distorted. Regardless of the photo, the music was magnificent and Linda had made the recording that would make her the superstar she should've been all along.

[the Scribe]

Looks like Linda to me. It may just be how our eyes see black and white versus color. You may just be seeing the real Linda or a side you never noticed before. That photograph is a work of art, as is Linda herself.

Black and White vs. Color Photography

By Ellen Anon

If color is so great, then why is black-and-white photography so popular? One simple reason is that it removes color as a component completely, removing any visual intensity and extraneous subtext that the color contributed to the image. If your image is a little too intense, removing the color might put its visual intensity back into the right range. Sometimes after you remove the color you’ll find that you need to increase the intensity in other components, which you often see in black-and-white landscape photos with dramatic skies.

FIGURE 24 The same photo in black and white (A) and color (B). In this case, the color wasn’t contributing anything useful to the image, and in fact the muted colors on this rainy day were lowering the overall energy. Converting to black and white and increasing the contrast helped raise the energy.

www.masteringphoto.com/black-and-white-vs-color-photography/

Also, by removing color, any emotional context associated with the colors or interactions between the colors goes away. Color accents draw your attention. If there’s a color accent in the photo, and the accented object isn’t the subject, then switching to black and white can help keep the viewer’s attention away from that object and let you focus it onto the subject through other components. Color contributes a broader effect to an image, too, as it helps us judge time. Autumn leaves are yellow and red, as opposed to green in the summer. Early morning and late evening light is more golden than midday light. Removing color de-emphasizes time, which is useful if time doesn’t matter to your vision for the photo.

Mark Changizi, in The Vision Revolution, puts forward another interesting idea about why black-and-white photos are appealing. He points out that the way we process color is very simple, and because of that we see similar shades of color in multiple objects; this expands on his idea that we see the colors we do because those are the colors that our blood creates in our skin. For example, the red in a ruby gemstone can look like the red of your face when you blush. Therefore, black and white can be said to be a truer representation of an object because any animal, even one without color vision, would perceive the image the same way. Removing the color removes the biases that our color vision system adds to how we perceive the image.

Ignoring the technical details as to why, sometimes black and white just makes an image more appealing, especially when the color’s not contributing anything. Fortunately, with our digital toolkit it’s very easy to experiment with converting an image to black and white. We’d recommend trying it when you have a very intense image and need to lose some intensity, when you have an image with very muted colors that’s almost black and white anyway (such as on a snowy day), or when you want to draw the viewer’s attention more to the lines, shapes, and lighting in the image.

Excerpt from See It: Photographic Composition Using Visual Intensity by Ellen and Josh Anon © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group.

Why does everybody look sexier in black and white film?

In photos as well as in film. Illustrative examples are welcome.

Allen Hoonkyo Lee, Thinking and exploring.

Answered May 5, 2011
According to what I've learned from my photography class:

Color photographs have ambient contextual information and viewers can sense the general atmosphere, mood, and the context of the photo not only by its subject but also by the myriad of colors as well.

In contrast, B&W photographs lack such information and as a result, they tend to invite more emotional responses and assumptions from the viewers as they consciously/unconsciously try to associate some kind of context and meaning to the subject of the photograph.

Therefore, B&W film doesn't make everyone look sexier per se, but it does attract more emotional responses and attachment to the subject. This is also the reason why we were often warned that we shouldn't callously take B&W photos of human subjects since they can generate terrible emotional misconceptions.

[eddiejinnj]

Her eyes seem more translucent or a lighter color in the pic. Maybe that is throwing people off. eddiejinnj

[memac62]

Here's what looks to be an unretouched version of the photo.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the excellent post on black and white v color... I am always reminded of this quote:

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”


― Ted Grant

[moe]

As to whether this is a Linda stand in or not---check out the eyes---that is 100% pure Linda. I do think the photo was composed to make her appear thinner and more vulnerable looking. I keep thinking of a fine porcelain figurine

[the Scribe]

Linda was perfectly thin during that time in her life. The cover photograph does look like a porcelain figure come to life. I always associate that photograph (and Linda) with a Jackson Browne song that was popular around that same time period. Fountain of Sorrow was from his Late For The Sky album. One of my top ten favorite albums of all time.

Had the left side of Linda's face been less shadowed it might change the dynamics of the photo however I don't believe the intent was to make her look thinner or different. It is all about shadows and light. Gorgeous photo.

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true



You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes