June 12, 2018 (draft)
Searching for a New Lena
The search is on to replace Lena with a standard test image that doesn't feed gender stereotypes and objectify women. Search for a New Lena
This reminded me of my personal experience with Lena, which I thought you might enjoy.
When I was doing image processing in the early days at IBM, I didn't want to use Lena because I thought the message was unprofessional, and I didn't like Cheryl Tiegs in her see-through bathing suit either.
<insert Lena, Cheryl, and that seductive image used in eye-movement studies>
My colleagues (men) told me that these images weren't interesting because of their sex appeal, but only because of the gradual variations in hue, saturation, and luminance. So I chose an image of a pig, instead, which I secretly called my "male chauvanist pig" : - )
<insert pig image>