Interpretations

One of the most enjoyable components of the photography process for me comes long after the shutter goes *click.* Post-processing is what makes a good photo amazing, and when I get excited about an image I can spend quite a while interpreting it different ways. You'll see a full preview of Sam's session soon (and Cassie's, too!) but I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while. Take the above image, one of my favorites from Sam's session. It's edited in a more traditional way (for me). But I wanted to place more emphasis on the eyes, and make the color pop just a bit more... to add to the drama of the photo.

This really amps it up a bit. I placed more emphasis on her amazing eyes by popping the color and further blurring out everything but her face. That also creates more movement in the background -- which happens to be a shimmery shirt Sam was wearing.

I had a feeling that the image would also be great in black and white, and I was right. Even though you don't see the color, the subtleties of black and white really bring out the "fire" in her eyes, and also the highlights of her hair. Often I spend more time editing a black and white photo, because I know certain elements pop more in this medium. In this case, I added the extra light to her eyes and painted in highlights to make them more prominent. I kept the extra blur-out from the last photo, so even though Sam was sitting perfectly still there's a sense of movement to the shot.

So that's a small bit of insight as to what goes on in my crazy head when I'm editing. As always, click to see more detail!