Who are photographers kidding?  Professional Photography is as much about retouching as it is about taking pictures.  Sure, pre-production and lighting are important, but the artist that does the retouching, and I do mean artist, is as important, if not more, than the photographer.

For some jobs, retouchers need to be on-set, as a consultant, advising the photographer on what shots to get and what shots are important to have for the retoucher’s magic to occur in post.

There is a wonderful article on newsstands now in (The New!!) American Photo about the Photographer Vincent Dixon and his re-toucher, Helene Chauvet.  They work very closely to come up with his final images, but Chauvet has as much (or more) importance to the final images as does Dixon.  (Many thanks to Dixon for doing this article.  Most photographers don’t have the balls to give their retouchers this much credit.  Dixon is a god in my book for admitting as much.)

Back in the old days, the darkroom technician was almost as important.  They really finessed an image, but they did not re-work an image to give it an illustrative or surreal quality as many present day fashion and advertising photographers do.   In the darkroom, bringing out the photographer’s “intent” from the negative was important, but the degree of control image makers and retouchers now have over images is mind blowing.

This in not your grandfather’s photography, or your father’s photography….  Welcome to a retouched world.