Social Interaction

1. Introduction

Touching another person is generally considered as establishing and indexing intimacy when two or more bodies get closer and engage in affectionate and emotional intercorporeal relations (Cekaite, in press; Goodwin, 2017, in press; Goodwin & Cekaite, 2018; see more generally Meyer, et al., 2017). Nonetheless, interpersonal touch can also occur in institutional settings, characterized by an asymmetric relation between a professional and a client, a patient, or a pupil, in contexts such as health care and school. In these institutional and professional settings, touch is not characterized by a sense of intimacy, but rather a sense of professionality in handling the body (which might not exclude affection, see Cekaite & Holm Kvist, 2017; Merlino, in press). A recurrent question for professionals as well as for researchers is how touch can be designed in a professional way, made accountable and adequate within the current institutional activity and not presenting any ambiguity concerning the interpersonal relations between the people involved. More generally, this question enables us to explore specific and detailed ways of designing a touching practice.

In this paper, we address this question by focusing on a specific institutional setting — the photography studio. By analyzing how photographers assemble their clients/models for a pose in front of the camera, we reveal that their professional action includes manipulating and touching the clients’/models’ bodies. These tactile interventions reveal how professional touch is performed and accomplished in a publicly intelligible and accountable way.

1.1. PROFESSIONAL TOUCH

Touch has been identified as a crucial practice in several fields, mostly in medicine and in education. In health care settings, touch is employed not only as a diagnostic device or a healing technique (for example in massage therapy, see Nishizaka, 2016) but also as a communicative practice to make the patient feel relevant aspects of her body — for example a pregnant woman feeling what is captured in an ultrasound examination (Nishizaka, 2007, 2010). In educational settings, touch has been considered for the way in which caretakers are both controlling and consoling children (Bergnehr & Cekaite, 2018; Cekaite, 2015, 2016, in press; Cekaite & Holm Kvist, 2017). In both fields, the delicate balance between personal and professional touch has been discussed, and this represents a key concern for all parties (Cekaite in press; Merlino, in press).

Professional touch (by analogy with professional vision, Goodwin 1994, 1995, 1997, 2000; for a critical review, see Lynch, 2018) entails tactile practices that are produced and recognized as practical and relevant within particular moments in the unfolding of specific and distinctive social activities. Professional touch is concerned not only with the skilled and stylized use of touch for the practical purposes of the professional tasks at hand (cf. Mondada, in press, for professional touch of cheese masters) but also with the social and normative relevance of touching the other person(s). Professional touch associates skilled touch with specific rights and obligations to touch, providing for the legitimacy of touching. It does so by adopting specific tactile practices normatively displayed as delicately and respectfully touching the other as a “client”, “patient”, etc.

1.2. THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S TOUCH: DATA AND ISSUES

This paper addresses the issue of professional touch in a field that does not necessarily and centrally involve tactile practices. This paper argues that though taking photographs is an activity that seems to rely primarily on professional vision (Goodwin, 1994), it is also a professional practice that crucially involves professional touch. The practices of photographers include instructing and arranging the bodies of clients/models in order to produce a relevant photographable (Tekin, 2017). The term photographable refers to the process through which the instructed poses achieve a disposition of the bodies that is looked at and assessed in relation to the action of shooting and its outcome. Orienting to body arrangements as a photographable consists in not only seeing them with the photographic eye but also considering the genre of the resulting photograph, including its aesthetic and normative features (Mondada, Monteiro & Tekin, in press; Tekin, 2017).

In this paper, we take a closer look at the ways in which photographers design and arrange a photographable scene by means of their tactile practices. This constitutes a form of professional touch, performed publicly, accountably and legitimately, within the work of producing and arranging configurations of bodies in front of the camera. These arrangements are achieved through verbal instructions and by touching and manipulating various body parts of the clients/models. The photographer’s touch in this context is very different than the clients’ reciprocal and controlling touch in couple or family photographs (Mondada, Monteiro, Tekin, in press). Yet, it offers resemblances to the tactile dispositions and explorations of the body by other professionals, e.g. health practitioners (see, for instance, Heath, 1986, 2006; Marstrand & Svennevig, 2018; Nishizaka, 2007, 2010, 2011).

This paper draws on a corpus of video recordings (approx. 12h) of photography sessions with professional photographers we collected in Turkey and Switzerland. All sessions were recorded with the collaboration of the photographers and the agreement of the photographed persons, that is, clients or models. In this paper, we draw on a sub-set from professional photography studios in which participants speak (Swiss) German and Turkish. We focus on instances in which the photographers touch and manipulate the models/clients during the arrangements of poses for a portrait, in a sequential environment in which the former engages in series of instructions to the latter, using both verbal utterances and embodied actions (Deppermann, 2018; Mondada, 2014). Within an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic framework, this paper studies the details of the sequential environments in which touch is mobilized in and for arranging the bodies of clients/models and highlights how it is designed and performed as professional touch.

The following analyses explore the tactile practices, and some of their variations, through which photographers arrange the bodies of the clients/models in professional photography studios. Our analysis unfolds in two sections. First, we focus on how photographers manipulate different parts of the body of the clients/models, treating the body of the client/model as a disarticulated one. In doing so, they reassemble, rearrange and reposition the bodies of the clients/models for the photographs. In this context, photographers not only employ touching practices, designed in particular ways, but also adopt perspectival postures, approaching the clients/models from a distance. These perspectival postures complement and specify what constitutes the photographers’ professional touch (Section 2). Second, further focusing on the manipulation of parts of the body, we show how both photographers and clients/models orient to touching and being touched as possibly delicate. This aspect is addressed both by photographers in the ways through which their professional touch is designed (and sometimes prosthetically mediated, for example, with some tools), their verbal turns co-occurring with touch are formatted, and their bodies are positioned in relation to the bodies of the photographed persons; and by clients/models in the ways through which they orient to the movements of photographers projecting touching, they follow photographers’ self-touch implicative instructions, and they respond to photographers’ queries requesting to touch them (Section 3). In both sections, we reveal how the photographers’ professional touch is combined with their professional vision, orienting to the achievement of a relevant photographable. In sum, the paper shows how photographers` professional touch practically and skillfully addresses issues of professionality, normativity and accountability.

2. Manipulating a disarticulated body for the photographic eye

An important preliminary to the photographer’s shot is the arrangement of the client’s body into a suitable and adequate pose, oriented to as a photographable, conforming to the wishes of the client and the aesthetics of the type of pose chosen. These arrangements are often instructed and orchestrated by the photographers, but they can also be self-initiated by the clients (Tekin, 2017). Professional instructions of photographers can be formatted with only verbal resources, or with only gestural-corporeal resources, or also can be produced within multimodal formats (Mondada, 2014). Here, we focus on the ways in which these instructions also involve touching, manipulating and orchestrating parts of the body of the clients to produce a photographable portrait.

In this section, we show some instances of these tactile arrangements, video recorded in a photography studio in Turkey. In our first example, we examine a fragment in which the photographer is working on the portrait of a client, Orhun. We join the action as Orhun moves into the stage and sits on the stool:

3. Orchestrating the body with precision and delicacy

The previous section has shown how photographers manipulate and direct clients’ bodies by touching and disposing them in a way that is considered as relevant to and adequate for the poses, constituting photographables. The previous section has also shown how the photographer’s professional posture is configured as a specific touch-cum-vision. This section further details how photographer’s touch is formatted. As such, it reveals that professional touch orients both to precision and delicacy and that this double dimension can be further enhanced by the use of tools.

In this section, we analyze four fragments from a photography studio in German-speaking Switzerland, in which the photographer works with some models for realizing their portraits within his art project. These fragments show the possible variations of the photographer’s touch concerning some aspects of the body, like hair and their location on the body, which can be treated as delicate. They also show how these details can be addressed and dealt with either by the photographer or by the model.

The first case shows how the photographer initiates touching the model’s head and hair, while orienting to this as a delicate matter. We join the action as the photographer, assisted by his assistant, Ryan, initiates a new shot, asking the model, Lia, who is standing askew, to modify her posture and to look straight at him (line 4):

The photographer initiates a new shot by turning to Lia, who is waiting in a frozen posture, diagonally positioned with respect to him. He utters an instruction accompanied by a gesture showing an alternative posture, repositioned straightly in front of him (line 4). Lia immediately complies, adopting the instructed position (lines 4–6), and requesting a confirmation (line 6) about it. The photographer responds with “mhm” (line 7), which is then upgraded into a positive assessment (line 9).

At this point, however, he does not take any photographs; instead, he adopts a perspectival posture (Figure 11), extending his right arm and hand towards her while standing at some distance (line 9) — in the touch-cum-vision position we have described in the previous section. As the photographer’s arm comes closer to Lia’s face (Figure 12A), she loosens her hands – while she was holding them behind her back (Figure 12B) – and brings them to the front (Figures 13A-13B). At that point, the photographer asks for permission, in a turn that is limited to a modal verb (“darf i”/‘may I’, line 11) — without any main verb specifying the targeted action — and a modifier (“schnell”/‘quickly’), which minimizes the effect of the projected action. This displays that he treats his projected action as requiring some permission. The late positioning of the permission also shows that it is responsive to her bringing the hands in front of her, orienting to his incipient movement towards her. After she grants permission with a minimal “mhm” (line 13), he touches her hair, smoothing it out on the left side of her head, while at the same time producing an apology (line 14).

While the photographer arranges the hair on the left side and then retracts his hand (line 15), Lia rearranges her hair on the right side (lines 15–17), until he produces a closing positive assessment (line 16). At this point, she again puts her hands behind her back, in the initial position (Figures 14A-14B).

In this fragment, the incipient movement projecting and leading to a brief touch is bodily responded to by the touched person even before the photographer asks for permission and apologizes. As such, the movement of the touched person represents a response to the projected touch, which displays its nonstraightforwardness. Moreover, as the photographer rearranges the left side of the head, the model rearranges the right side, in a complementary manner (lines 13–17). These movements show that both photographer and model orient to touch as a possibly delicate matter, which is also observable when photographer responsively orient to her displays. Furthermore, the photographer’s other-touching and the model’s subsequent self-touching show two ways in which this action can be initiated and performed, involving self-touch vs. other-touch, orienting to the normativity of touch. As we see, self-touch doing what other-touch has been doing comes second; the first shows how hair needs to be arranged, and the second follows and adjusts to it. What is more, the first one depends crucially on the photographer’s vision, and it is done by him with his arm and hand maximally extended in such a way that it touches the model while keeping his perspectival vision on her and at the same time displays an orientation to its delicate character.

The previous fragment has shown not only the possible delicacy of the photographer’s touch but also some variations in the way touch is designed and accomplished. These variations are made particularly observable when the same action is made in different ways. We join the next fragment as the photographer is initiating a new pose with another model, Ale. The photographer deals with the rearrangement of the model’s hair in different ways, by instructing her to do so (implying self-touch) or by directly stroking it (involving other-touch).

The photographer initiates the next pose with an instruction (line 2), both verbally and gesturally, to which Ale responds by standing up in front of him (lines 2–3). At this point, he requests to arrange the hair behind her ears (line 4), also doing the same movement on himself and showing Ale how to touch herself (Figures 15A-15B). Responsively, Ale produces a series of instructed movements (line 4 and 11), which involve various self-touch instances, verbally guided by the photographer. At the beginning of these instructions, Ale not only complies with them (line 4, Figures 15A-15B; lines 7–9 and 11, Figure 16) but also steps forward and leans towards the photographer when she asks for a confirmation (line 8). This could make it possible for the photographer to touch her hair and complete her arrangement, yet he does not. This shows the participants’ orientations that arranging hair is possibly done with self-touch, and verbal instructions are used as an alternative to other-touch.

This set of instructions is completed with the photographer thanking Ale (line 13). However, at this point, two touching movements are initiated in parallel by both participants (Figure 17). Ale utters a polar question (lines 15–16), while touching the top of her head. This inquiry is occasioned by the previous instructions and orients towards the relevance of having the hair glued to the head without bumps. At the same time, the photographer extends his left hand towards her head, without saying a word, but in a visible way (the hand is moved slowly and openly, in a way that visibly projects its trajectory, Figure 17). He touches her ponytail and smooths it out. His action is silently completed, and the movement is retracted at the end of the polar question (line 16). Consequently, then, the photographer responds to Ale (line 18), extending his left hand again, this time to touch the same place as she touched while asking her a question — as she retracts her own touch. Before touching her, the photographer asks permission to do so (with “darf i?”/‘may I?’ line 20, Figures 18A-18B), within a turn uniquely composed by the modal verb, without any main verb, and without any specification of the object/action concerned by the permission (like in fragment 3). He touches Ale only after she has granted permission (line 21). This touch, as well as the verbal response (line 18), suggest that the photographer cannot answer Ale’s question (lines 15–16) on the basis of vision only. Indeed, by touching, the photographer is able to feel that there is a little bump on top of her head. As his non-type-conforming response (line 23) displays, he recognizes “e ganz kleine”/‘a very little one’; however, he continues his turn with “aber”/‘but’ and leaves it unfinished. This shows that the detail pointed at by Ale is not straightforwardly visible. Indeed, the photographer turns to other sources of evidence, first to his camera’s screen, and then to previous photographs displayed on his computer. This enables him to spot the bump pointed at on his computer screen (line 27, Figure 19) — for the identification of which he requests a confirmation from Ale, who indeed confirms (line 29).

This fragment shows how relevant arrangements of parts of the body for photographs — arranging head and hair in specific ways — can be addressed through various actions, which might be initiated either by the photographer or by the model, and which involve touching or not, self-touch or other-touch. In the first part of the fragment, the photographer chooses to shape the body arrangement through instructions that guide the model touching herself. Then, both the photographer and the model engage in touching some part of the model’s head for fixing a detail. Finally, the photographer engages in touching the model’s head, in order to check a possible problem pointed at by her, first with touch and then by sight (including sight mediated by technology, on the computer screen). As in the previous examples, touch and touched details are treated in relation to the professional vision of the photographer, that is, in relation to what could or should be seen on the photograph.

Further variations in dealing with bodily details are observable in the following fragment, in which the photographer addresses the problem of Ale’s strands of hair that are visible on her black cloth. This problem can be fixed either by directly touching the cloth, and consequently, the upper part of the torso, and picking up these hairs or by using a tool, a clothes brush, which is not only efficient for collecting the hairs but also implies an indirect touch mediated by the object.

The participants reposition for the next pose (line 1). While the photographer utters an elliptical turn referring to problems occasioned by Ale’s hair (lines 1-3), he gesticulates with the brush – which he has grasped from the nearby table – in his left hand (line 2). This makes the tool visible for Ale and, together with his turn, projects its usage, which is also hinted at by a movement of the photographer imitating the use of the brush on himself (line 3).

When he comes closer to Ale with the tool (Figure 20), she aligns with this movement, first by stretching her clothes as to facilitate the cleaning, but also to minimize the contact with her body (Figure 21), but then reverts this movement, and takes the tool handed over by the photographer (Figure 22). This enables her to clean her hair on her clothes (Figure 23). So, in this fragment, although she first aligns with a possible use by the photographer of the brush, she then realigns with him offering the tool. The latter solution implies self-touch whereas the former relies on other-touch, both enabled and mediated by the tool.

As Ale uses the brush, she aligns with his account (line 9), in a turn that refers the strands of hair as something that escapes the attention of “sälber”/‘oneself’, thus displaying an orientation to the (relevance of the) photographer’s gaze for noticing this detail.

Next, the photographer initiates a new turn, further accounting for the annoying character of hair on clothes (“wenn ich”/‘if I’, line 11) which is suspended by a request (“darf ich schnell”/‘may I quickly’, line 11) uttered after he extends his right hand (Figures 24–26) in order to pick up a further strand of hair on her breast. The request is — like in fragment 3 — formatted with a modal verb, without any main verb, without specifying what is requested, and with the same minimizer as in fragments 3 and 4 (“schnell”/‘quickly’). The request is also immediately followed by the resumption of the previous utterance (“wenn ich”/‘if I’, line 11), which constitutes the request as an insertion. Ale first looks at the photographer (Figure 25), then at his moving fingers (the index and thumb are actively used towards her, in a stylized way, with the three other fingers curled back, cautiously retracted, see Figure 26), and also slightly withdraws her upper body (Figure 26). Though she displays some reluctance as shown by her withdrawal and the “tsk”-prefaced turn (line 14), she silently aligns with the photographer’s action after he has retracted his hand.

At that point, Ale also gives the photographer the brush back (line 14), which he eventually takes (line 16). While he utters the second part of what becomes an “if… then” clause (line 16) (after Ale has already responded to it), he approaches the bottom of her torso with the brush and cleans it (lines 16–17, Figure 27). He just thanks her when he is finished (line 18, cf. fragment 4, line 13). Ale looks at herself even before he approaches with the brush, checking whether there are other hairs on her clothes, thereby projecting possible further cleaning. When he retracts, she approaches her hands and does a further cleaning movement (Figure 28), similar to the one he has just done (see also fragment 3).

Thus, in this fragment, a practical problem magnified by the photographer’s eye — the presence of visible hairs on a black clothes — is addressed by the participants in different ways, which orient to the normativity of touch and involve self-touch vs. other-touch, as well as direct touch vs. indirect touch which is mediated by a tool. The photographer giving the brush to the model favors a solution involving self-touch, although she briefly aligns with the possibility that he uses it on her. Yet, as the problem persists, the photographer engages not only in using the brush on her but also in touching her. These actions are explicitly treated as accountable and relevant for his photographic work; both participants address them as concerning details that could possibly escape the model’s attention (line 9), although they are attached to her body. This further legitimizes the relevance of a tactile intervention of the photographer, which relies on his professional vision: together, they constitute his touch-cum-vision.

Our last fragment, from the same studio, further shows how the use of a tool can mediate touch, orienting to its possibly problematic character. While arranging Lia’s pose in profile, the photographer encounters again a problem with hair:

The participants are repositioning for a new shot. The photographer instructs Lia about the posture to adopt (line 1) and positively assesses her pose (line 3). He then gives another instruction (line 5), promptly followed by her response (line 5), which is confirmed by him (line 7). At this point, he raises his camera, projecting the shooting.

Yet, what follows is not a shot; instead, he lowers the camera, suspending the projected shooting, and grasps a makeup paintbrush from the nearby table (line 8). He holds it in a reverse position, the brush up, and approaches Lia’s head. He uses the handle of the paintbrush as a tool to rearrange her hair (Figures 29A-29B). The use of the tool (like the clothes brush in fragment 5) mediates the photographer’s touch. Moreover, the way he handles the brush, by maintaining the initial position of his body, not coming closer to her but touching her with the left arm extended, further minimizes the contact (see fragments 1– 2). Furthermore, this way of arranging the hair involves the photographer keeping a perspectival posture, maintaining his visual perspective at a distance on the model. In this way, he can visually assess the change he is introducing in her head and adjust it to the type of profile portrait that he is preparing. So, the manner in which he embodies the delicate touch with a brush orients not only towards a minimization of his touch but also to the continuity of his visual perspective on the model — within the professional touch-cum-vision.

In sum, the analyses presented in this section elaborated the methodic character of some of the photographer’s professional postures: he looks at the model at a distance, embodying the visual perspective of the photographic eye; when he touches the model, this is done at some distance, in such a way that this professional vision can accountably guide his touching movement; his touch can be mediated by a tool, further addressing issues of precision and delicacy. This perspectival posture can also respond to normative aspects of professional touch, concerning both the delicacy of the touch and of the body part being touched (breast, torso, head). Displaying professional touch legitimizes touch within an authorized practice and at the same time minimizes the contact with the other’s body. Exhibiting the professionality of the touch not only makes it relevant for the ongoing activity, but also disambiguates it from an interpersonal intimate touch. In this context, the formatting of action, self-touch vs. other-touch and direct vs. indirect touch, displays some normatively, socially and professionally shaped variations.

4. Conclusion

Arranging the bodies of clients and models for the relevant poses is a crucial prefatory task to taking photographs as a situated activity. Arranging, manipulating and orchestrating the bodies for poses can be done through various actions, which might involve touch or not. Photographers’ professional touch — gently and delicately pushing, moving, smoothing, manipulating details of their clients’/models’ bodies — enables them to organize the targeted poses.

This professional touch is often coupled with a professional vision that is achieved through the adoption of a perspectival posture, embodying the photographic eye on the pose. This perspectival posture conjugates both distance (vision) and proximity (touch). By staying at a distance, leaning back, and kneeling down, photographers actively sustain the visual perspective of the photographic eye. By protracting arms and hands, extending spread fingers towards the clients/models, photographers specifically design professional touch. Thus, by touching from a distance, sometimes further mediated by a tool, photographers achieve two complementary purposes: on the one hand, they maintain the specific vision analogous to the one of looking through the camera and shooting; on the other hand, they make touch visible and projectable, as well as minimally intrusive and limitedly tactile. Both aspects constitute the accountability of touch, both its intelligibility and delicacy.

As a result of both professional touch and professional vision, professional touch-cum-vision enables photographers to both accomplish their professional tasks and legitimize their tactile interventions on the clients’/models’ bodies. This article has demonstrated and discussed some practices constituting this professional touch-cum-vision, while arranging the bodies for photographs to be taken.

The systematic analysis of the tactile dimension of these practices contributes to a better understanding of how touch can be professionally designed, integrating the specificities of a work setting. Photographers’ professional touch treats the models’/clients’ bodies in specific ways. Although global poses can be instructed at a distance (or self-initiated by the client) typically at the beginning of the pose, more detailed aspects of the pose often receive embodied instructions, treating the body in a manner that mobilizes and autonomizes its disarticulated parts in distinct ways under the perspective of the photographic eye. The professional touch might be designed in different ways, showing an orientation to the delicate character of parts of the body — since arranging hair, head, legs or arms do not bear the same normative relevancies.

The clients’/models’ responses consist mostly in a docile bodily alignment, complying with the gentle and delicate touch of the photographers and collaboratively adopting the instructed movements and postures. Yet, the clients’/models’ responses also display how the photographers’ touch is treated (in terms of adequacy, delicacy and precision) and what the possible variations are (in terms of options between touching vs. not touching, self-touch vs. other-touch, direct touch with the hand vs. indirect touch with a tool). In particular, the clients/models can proceed to self-touch movements that not only complement the photographers’ touch but also might suggest an alternative to their tactile interventions. Moreover, these responses – albeit aligning – may manifest some resistance, indicating the possibly delicate or even problematic character of touch. The photographers orient to these normative dimensions, either preemptively or retrospectively, through actions such as requests for permission, offers to help, apologies, thanks, and so on.

The analysis of the photographers’ professional touch — within different cultural and linguistic contexts — contributes to our understanding of both the specific shapes, designs and forms of touch within a professional realm and the consequentiality of the trajectory, accountability and delicacy of touch, the ways it is responded and adjusted to. The particular context — the photography studio — studied here casts light on the professional, technical, normative, delicate and interpersonal dimensions of touch. By showing how professional touch and professional vision are articulated together, it also casts light on forms of professional multisensoriality.

Transcription conventions

Talk has been transcribed following the conventions of Gail Jefferson (2004). Embodied conducts have been transcribed following the conventions of Lorenza Mondada (see Mondada 2018 for a conceptual discussion, and https://www.lorenzamondada.net/multimodal-transcription for a tutorial).