The Retouched Portrait

In 2019, photographer Lindsay Adler gave a TED Talk in New York where she showed two versions of the same portrait. The first had been run through professional retouching software — skin smoothed to porcelain, every pore erased, jawline sculpted, eyes brightened to an almost supernatural gleam. The audience nodded approvingly. Then she showed the original. The woman in the unretouched photo had laugh lines, a slight asymmetry to her smile, a small scar near her chin. She looked real. She looked alive. And she was, every person in that room agreed, far more beautiful.

We live in a culture of veils. We filter our photos, curate our social media, rehearse our answers to "How are you?" We present the retouched version of ourselves and wonder why no one truly knows us.

Paul says that when we turn to Christ, the veil is removed. Not gradually peeled back, not swapped for a thinner one — removed. And with faces unveiled, we behold the glory of the Lord and are transformed into that same image, "from one degree of glory to another."

This is the stunning paradox of the gospel: we don't become more beautiful by covering up. We become more beautiful by letting the light in. When we stop hiding behind carefully constructed versions of ourselves and stand honestly before God and one another, the Spirit does what no filter ever could — He makes us look like Jesus.

That is a glory no retouching can improve.