Bianca Carosio is a US based retoucher who is world renowned for creating exceptional images. With an eye for beauty and detail unrivalled by few, the daughter of artist Federico Carosio III is a force to be reckoned with. Having creatively assisted/ retouched for clients worldwide including top photographers such as David LaChapelle, Matthew Jordan Smith, Markus Klinko & Indrani, Bianca has carved a career for herself in her own right. You can find published works from Bianca in UFC magazine, Men’s Health magazine, ESPN magazine and the New York Observer. world famous photographer Markus Klinko was quoted as saying “Bianca not only is a talented retoucher and post production artist, she also has a great sense of beauty and style. I can only recommend her and I am confident that she will be highly successful in the industry.” I caught up with Bianca to find out a little bit more about her.
Hi Bianca tell us a bit about yourself? Hello Karl! I’m an artist born and raised in Miami, FL. My studies were in Visual Effects & Motion Graphics where it has led me to now specializing in retouching. From many creative standpoints I’ve ultimately been in the industry for about 7 years now.
What is future of retouching? The future of retouching will definitely grow as it’s still a very under minded specialty. My hope is that it doesn’t continue going in its current direction of false advertisement and overly done work. I try to promote REALITY as much as possible.
Photographer- Lionel Deluy
I don’t know about the U.S but in the UK there seems to be a big debate about retouching, why do you think that is? That probably coincides with my last point. Questions being raised on what is going too far and what should be acceptable for consumers and viewers. Nowadays, people have become accustomed to everything being perfected so easily. What is perfection anyways? It’s non-existent and maybe by weaning off the perfecting in all images we can step back into reality while still portraying beauty.
How did you get into retouching? There’s no one exact moment where it just began or where I picked up a book to learn it. I’ve been surrounded by the arts my whole life and retouching was ultimately self-taught. The introduction of my practice was due to having multiple photographer, model, and artist friends where I started to retouch their images. Trial and error was how it started and gradually grew into more efficiency of the skill.
You have worked with a lot of celebrities clients, who is your favorite and why? Everyone has been a blast in their own way but my mind gets directed to Markus Klinko & Indrani for a long relationship we’ve had. Matthew Jordan Smith is fantastic and so humble. Vijat Mohindra has a certain style that is unique and I love adding my twist on it. There’s many honestly!
Photographer- Lionel Deluy
What’s your favorite image you have worked on? You know how many amazing images I’ve worked on? I have many favorites! I typically love the odd, conceptual, and unexpected type.
What’s the best thing about being a retoucher? I love what I do and I’m excited with each project received just knowing what transformations will be made. I think many artists can agree when you’re doing what you love to do for a career that’s really living the dream.
And what’s the worse? I can say some challenging aspects of the job is working on tight deadlines with a 12-hour time difference between yourself and clients. There have also been cases of “all nighters” where a shoot had to be completed the next day for a TV. Show. Talk about hard work.
What do you think are the biggest conceptions about working in the fashion industry? That it is glamorous and it is not! Viewers all over the world see these beautiful final products and don’t know what it takes to make it happen. Even the models themselves have it very rough at times but no one on the outside would ever know.
Photographer-Devin Dygert
What were your first job experiences like? I know I practiced a lot on old damaged images belonging to my family, which came out great. Once they showed them around I began getting projects, related to damaged images, and very detailed oriented work. That then led more into model’s headshots and so forth. I was very excited to know people trusted my ability and judgments for just starting out in the field.
Who are you influences? Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher, Helmut Newton, Josephine Baker, Quentin Tarantino, and more.
How has your job changed in the last couple of years? More and more people are relying on the retoucher to fix everything, which includes mistakes of others involved on the shoot. Some photographers are also becoming less productive with the quality they produce because they know the retoucher can make it far better anyways. Back in the film days the producing of images were harder, more time consuming, and more expensive. With those things in account the retouching was so minimal as to now it has exploded to an excessive degree. As for the last couple of years you see this growth continuing as well with the workload getting larger.
Photographer-Devin Dygert
What can we expect from you in the future? Many things I’m very excited about! More amazing images will be posted on my website, you will be seeing me have a lot more involvement in projects from pre to post production, and I will be returning to a few major cities soon for further great projects. I’d advise all viewers to bookmark my website www.carosiofx.com and Follow me on Twitter @BiancaCarosio for many updates!
