Compositing the body: Ethical expertise among professional photographic retouchers

Abstract Focusing on the media practices of professional photographic retouchers in New York, this paper explores how the body is being reproduced in the modern fashion system. I foreground retouchers' distinctive ethical imaginaries and attempts to construct “inclusive” visual objectifications. Such imperatives are most explicit in techniques they refer to as “compositing” (verb), a term which references selective, compositional practices that combine multiple socioculturally marked visual elements. The article points to a parallax of ethical intentions marked by competing media ideologies: while public critics seek to decrease the prevalence of retouching, retouchers argue instead that more, expertly engineered and thoughtfully engaged retouching practices can generate a more ethical and inclusive media world. I conclude by discussing some of the broader implications of this revelation for visual anthropologists at a moment where pressures to make expertise “public” might run against the grain of expert communities' own ethical priorities.