Why seeing someone in real life with a great bod is much more impressive.
Why a slinky tight dress in a magazine usually fails to impress.
It is not just a matter of overdose, dulling of senses etc.
There is no reference point.
To our minds, there are these great bods, and great abs, and bountiful hair, and so on. But its wonderful compared to what?
Thats when the photographers art comes into play, to give perspective to the viewer. To get the correct reference point.
Imagine the same man/woman walking down a street...with normal people. Thats when the whole person / the advertised commodity comes into perspective. Thats when they are shortlisted for assignements, for showcasing the product.
Its all about perspective, about comparison. Nothing is understood in its totality unless it it with respect to something else.
Everything in the end is comparison to some known thing. A meter, kilometer, pound, KG, anything. THe human mind can only grasp things while keeping in perspective some other known thing (redder than that apple, bigger than your thumb, etc). Thus it is vital to get the correct comparison scale.
(This is true for just about anything)
Drawing from there. If everything is compared, then if we keep moving back into comparisons, then there should be an ultimate point where we can find out what the final benchmark of comparison is.
That one final thing, which we keep as the 'gold standard' and finally figure out everything else in the world wrt it.
Wonder what THAT is.