Consider the Image is the thought leadership platform for Feather Creative co-owners Linn Edwards and Salma Khalil. We launched this platform as a reflection of our conscience as we ask ourselves: what is our contribution to the harms of negative body image, gender and racial exclusion? What message are we flashing to our global audience? What could work in a commercial world that was a force of good? Could we make a profit and still sleep easy at night?

Ethical image-making, transparency and community-building are our core tenets. As a post production house, we have a unique vantage point in the creative process. We see the craft and humanity within every picture that comes across our screens. We are given the privilege of trust from our creative partners and handle their valuable output with a duty of care. As a support service to the vision of creators, we see a role for us in facilitating an era of accountability in our industry.

In 2016, we joined entrepreneur Sarah Krasley as founding members and advisors of the Retouchers Accord, a social impact project that we rolled into our mission. We committed to support consensus-based guidelines on the ethical retouching of bodies along with like-minded artists who respect and celebrate models of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities in commercial and editorial imagery.

Today, we find ourselves once again called to action. With the challenges generative AI brings to our industry, the same harms are still front-and-center. We call on creators of all stripes to join us in establishing collective values.

Feather Creative is a women-owned post-production studio in New York City. It was born from countless conversations with clients, discussing the changing style of retouching, increased collaboration between the creatives and their post-production studio, the shifting tides in commercial photography, and the powerful role of women in the field.