Another Side of What I Do

So much goes into what I do in order to provide clients with the beautiful product they receive. Everything from continuous education, maintaining my equipment, research on locations, purchasing and making props, designing a session unique to that client, answering correspondence, packing up my gear and heading to the location, setting up, providing the best session experience they ever had and then driving home to ogle over the amazing photos I now get to edit! And this list is just a third of what I actually do! I didn't even mention the maintenance of my social media, website, marketing, insurance, taxes, as well as post production which includes things like purchasing, making and creating unique packages for client's, writing personal thank you cards and mailing out the cd to patiently awaiting clients! And there'e still more...but I want to focus a little on one of my favorite parts today which is editing! I will be showing examples of my before and after so you can see Another Side of What I Do. The samples you will see show my "before" which is the image straight out of the camera with absolutely no editing of any kind done to it. The "after" image shows the final edit I gave to my client. : )

This is my favorite from Xavier & Rheigan's session...truly inspiring!

You will see from the editing samples I will share today, that I really don't do a whole lot to photos unless I am trying to do a creative shot. That's because I do not like over-editing. My style is sweet and simple. I always add a little warmth to my photos and draw your eye to my subjects by adding a little "pop" in color to create more depth. That's it! Unless I'm working on a creative shot, editing takes me 5 minutes tops for any particular picture. I can finish a complete album in one day so long as I'm not outside playing in the warm sun with my kiddo for most of it! Hahaha but can you blame me? : ) I'm sure you may be wondering what I mean by creative shot...I will show you 2 kinds of creative shots to give you an idea.

This is Kyle's Superhero session...a wind blown cape was a necessity!

For Kyle's session, the owner of this location hooked me up with a massive construction fan and we did use it for some shots but it wouldn't reach to the area I wanted to use for this shot so I improvised! I had mommy stand behind Kyle and hold the cape. When I got home, I simply took her out of the photo and voila! Granted the photo went through a lot editing to remove mom, but notice again the overall editing is sweet and simple. Added a little warmth and light...magic! Here's another example...

Here is Ashley, Eric and Hailie! A special edit for a special family!

As you can see in this photo, I still kept to my style of adding warmth. The fence on the left was also removed and I created a live scoreboard! Why would I do that you might ask? Truth be told...I know nothing about sports. This beautiful family taught me tons! In fact, right after the session they rushed home to watch their fave team, the NY Giants, WIN the game that night! The next day I googled the winning score and added it to the scoreboard! This will be something they always remember. They appreciated the fact that I took the extra time to make this image truly unique to just them! How about I show you one more before I give you a BIG SURPRISE!

Jasmine's Back to School session was SO much fun!!

I think another thing that may be quite obvious is that when I take a photo, I take it with purpose. Even if I took a quick snapshot so I wouldn't miss a perfect moment, I put a lot of thought into that split second. Having to make sure my camera settings are always perfect since I shoot in manual mode is crucial. Making sure I take a photo with intention also means I won't have to crop it when I edit. This allows me to keep the file at it's maximum size to allow for large prints at the best quality....and did I mention is makes editing fast? Now hopefully I haven't bored you to death with the editing aspect of my job hahaha but it's one of my favorite parts and I wanted to share it with you since I get a lot of inquiries into how I create the images I post. I also wanted to share it because it's a large part of what I do and I work hard at maintaining and improving my Photoshop skills to ensure my end result is amazing...because all of my beautiful clients deserve amazing photos!!! OK...so are you ready for my BIG SURPRISE?!

This photo was taken by Monica Nichols from Nichols Photography

Why am I posting a photo from another photographer on my blog? Because the photo was taken by Monica Nichols, but I edited it as part of a contest at Photographers Connection...and I was one of the 3 WINNERS! Out of over 100 entries, I was in the top 3! In fact, my image was chosen by Jammie Lopez personally (the creator and owner of this amazing photographer community on Facebook)! I read the post at 1am this morning and totally teared up! I am so honored that my editing style is loved and appreciated! It also gives me a confidence boost in what I do...that I must be doing something right! : ) If you want to check out the link you can visit: Photographer's Connection - Editing Challenge

Thank you so much for reading what I have to say! : )