So often I talk about editing photographs. But what does that mean exactly? First, every picture is taken with care. The plan is to be as perfect as possible in the camera, white balance is set, I meter for light, I choose and my ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. (Yes that’s totally foreign to some of you, no worries). Bottom line, it’s important to be as perfect in camera as possible. But after our session my work really begins.

The photo below is exactly as it came out of my camera. Though it’s from 2013 it’s an excellent photo. But not good enough for my clients. Not good enough for your walls.

The first thing I did was remove her ‘fly-aways’ from her face. It was a really windy day, and as much as we tried to push back her hair, we were left with a few rogue strands falling over her eyes and some messy hair on the side. I wanted to make her eyes sparkle without making them fake, and her skin shimmer without making her look plastic. I had to remove the redness from her nose (it was 30 degrees) and take off the dry skin around her mouth. And I wanted to make the colors pop. Sometimes I’ll add some more magic, or create a black and white image at this point. Here’s her final portrait, which is proudly hanging in her home. And if your gallery has 70 images in it, I do this to all 70.

Sometimes the edit is fairly simple, it’s just a matter of popping some color, and either brightening or darkening the image depending on the mood I’m going for. Like with these below.

And sometimes it’s a bit more complex, where I have to take out a spotter who is there to make sure baby stays safe.

Sometimes I decide an image is more powerful in black and white, like these:

Newborn sessions come with their own challenges. Often baby skin is red, or even yellowish, peeling, or a bit translucent. Sometimes it’s blotchy, with tiny red spots on their eyelids or bodies, and around day 12 some newborns get baby acne.  I take care to make sure things are perfect in camera, BUT sometimes a foot sticks out, or I don’t love the angle the baby is laying. so in the editing process we go from this:

to this:

And from this:

to this:

It takes time. It takes patience. And it’s the reason I don’t just hand over every image I take to my clients. You pay for art, not just a bunch of photographs.