That is an interesting question and like most topics that have billions of different takes on it I will defer to the subjects in the images. Even with a trend towards more realism, what one things of their own image is shaped by millions of experiences a human has to build up a perception of oneself. The street and grunge style photographers like grit and monochrome....of other people but looking at their own selfies and Instagram images they pick more idealized images. A good friend is a designer of women's clothing and makes all her own plus her growing following. She has me take photos of some of the outfits on average people or occasionally on models. She wants the images that are edgy and not pretty, but she sees no contradiction that her own personal selfies and pro shots she posts daily is about as glamorous as one would accept without being over the top too glam, too made up, to jet-set. She looks great in them.....and far better than in person. She is an attractive fit woman of 40 who dresses as if every day is a gala red carpet event and a lot sexier than her real-life mother of 2 children under 10. This an example of the gulf between what we see on others opposed to what we imagine ourselves to be.
So a street shooter who is taking photos of strangers if they are younger, will probably seek less idealized, more hard-edged images of their subjects but if they asked for a studio or street environmental set I am willing to bet they want the ones that hide the bulges, color irregularity and cleaned up images for their own personal use. A task of portrait photography is to capture what is fundamental of the subject's nature, which often is not classically beautiful at all and them splitting the different to appeal to their friends and the subject, a not so simple task because usually the subject and acquaintances have very different image of the subject.
I have a session early next week with young woman who feels ugly and unfeminine, 9months after having a baby. I think she is very attractive, in fact just plain hot but she is in depression and seeing her self as unappealing. For 18 months she developed a new self-image that is unrelated to her physical appearance. Her friends envy her natural beauty and flawless skin but she just sees an old woman whose only value is as a mother. I will not shoot any glamor poses or lighting, I plan on using poses to make her look light and airy, floating which means lots of bent, flexed joints and no edges of limbs crossing over other body parts, which the 2-D images of a camera increases the perception of bulk and weight, and what models who look really good, fit in images are often really skinny and angular in person viewed with our binocular eyes which tend to slim horizontally and add bulk on a vertical axis. They are built to look good in a 3d world as seen by 2-camera, so only look good in 2-d. I will see what the young mother's mood is after she sees the final selections.
