People frequently ask what my style is. Most times I answer the question by giving them the link to my blog and telling them to define it in their own words. My goal, is to create simple, clean, emotional, and timeless imagery. When I press the shutter, I am creating the image then and there. What I do when I am in front my computer, is simply to “finish” the image. I also have a very simple approach when it comes to finishing my images. 99% of my images are in “straight” color or black and white. You can venture through the pages of my blog and see how I got to where I am today and while I am slowly tweaking my processing style, my intent will remain the same. While style’s change over the years, I simply want my images to remain timeless.
With that said, there are basically three steps in the process with the final one being the one of the images you see on my blog as well as what anyone who orders a print receives. The first step would be straight out of camera. Personally, I do almost everything manually. I shoot in manual mode, selecting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I choose the white balance for the current lighting environment and I also select one of the 51 AF points my camera has to have the camera automatically focus on, but only when I press a separate button to activate the autofocus. I then press the shutter button and voila, I have created an image or if you prefer, I have captured a moment in time. Here is an image from Cara + Joe’s Engagement session straight out of camera (SOC).
The second step is the “proofing” step. This is adjusting things such as; color, contrast, exposure, highlights and shadows. This gets the image most of the way there. These are the images that will be viewed in a gallery from an engagement session or a wedding and delivered to the client. I also refer to these as Digital Negatives. Here is the image in proof form…
The final step is my favorite and most fun to do…to FINISH the image for however it’s going to be displayed. With this step, things like; eyes, skin, specific colors, and sharpness are all adjusted. Every image ordered, receives these types of adjustments and each image is even sized and sharpened based on the print size ordered, to make sure it looks great! Here is the final web or print form of the image…
Here’s another image. Straight our of camera…
Proof form…
And in print form. I converted the image to black and white to help keep the viewer focused on the emotion of the image. I will also convert images to black and white if there are distracting colors in the image. I frequently convert recessional, first dance and other images with a bit more emotion to black and white.
Straight out of camera…
Proof form…
And in final print/web form…
One last one for now. Straight out of camera…
Proof…
Final…
I will try and do one of these every couple months. 🙂
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Rachael - Love your updates.