Photographer Anthony Citrano recently
expressed the view that a photo of Demi Moore on the cover of December's W magazine
had been altered -- and not for the better.
"Apparently the clumsy Photoshop artist decided she was looking too strong in the cover shots -- and awkwardly chopped off part of her left thigh,"
he wrote. "Fashion designers, art directors, and yes, even we photographers are often trying to be fantastical and aspirational, not necessarily realistic -- but when they make clumsy mistakes,
completely miss the mark, and end up making people look like mutants, I get to make fun."
Moore evidently disagrees. Her lawyer, Martin Singer, wrote to Citrano and demanded that he retract all blog and Twitter posts claiming the photo had been manipulated and apologize to the actress.
Not only did Singer attempt to squelch Citrano's comments about the original image, but the lawyer also tried to prevent others from learning about his letter to Citrano by calling it a
"confidential legal communication." Of course, as Citrano pointed out, one party to a conversation can't unilaterally declare it confidential.
Citrano also points out that it isn't inherently
defamatory to allege that a photo has been tweaked. "I have no problem with digital retouching (do it all the time), no problem with Demi Moore (she's a beautiful woman), think the image is a great
shot," he writes. "I simply thought the missing hip-chunk was funny. I thought we could all laugh about it for the day
(maybe tack it up on a retoucher's wall of shame) and move on to the far more important things."
Allegations of Photoshopping don't seem all that libelous in themselves, but perhaps Moore
fears these types of claims could make it harder for her to get work in Hollywood. Still, you'd think that the actress and her lawyer would know that threatening a blogger with a lawsuit is about the
worst possible way to try to squelch debate.