Rendering "reality" covers a very wide range. You have all those perfect faces staring at you from magazine covers (and there have been some breath-taking ones of Elizabeth Taylor lately), and then there are the faces of the people around you. Some don't bother with makeup or grooming, some over-do it, and everything in-between.

Attraction to beautiful faces is hard wired into humans, so it's no great wonder most would-be artists gravitate toward beauty shots. Just consider what is commonly accepted as one the greatest portraits of all time, the Mona Lisa. Captivating, but hardly photo-real.

Anyone remember an old Twilight Zone episode, in which Donna Douglas was being pressured to have her 'coming of age' plastic surgery? Everyone must conform to current standards of beauty, no matter how bizzare...