Artist style as a photographer is something that grows and changes as you yourself grow and change. Tone can be set by the session and setting itself – but the style of processing is 100% creative vision. Sometimes it take a while to find it and that is where I am right now. I have been working to re-edit images as well as revisit images that I thought I couldn’t salvage with the edit software of the previous years.
With the updates to Lightroom and the more presets I have invested In, I am happy with my edits. They don’t look like an image straight out of the camera but I see the toning and processing as an illustrator adding color to a line drawing. The original image is that line drawing, with all the structure and content, but the color and life comes in the post-process aspect for me. I love the my curves and grain that tell as much a story and set the mood of a gallery as the image’s subject itself.
Such can be said of these images below. I snapped a few quick images of my daughter to test out a new lens I got to test the indoor high ISO performance and then when I started editing them for fun, I realized it was telling a story. One I have not even seen when I was taking the initial images.
My daughter is often the subject of my photography for two simple reasons, she is so expressive and funny to photograph as well as the fact is she is there (and free to model for me). The first images reflect her joy at playing in the rain and the simple pleasure it brought her, the indoor shots are after I brought her inside because she was getting too wet and cold. Without any words, her posture and expression conveys her unhappiness at not being able to keep playing in the rain. She was content to sit there and watch a show she liked on tv while Mommy used her as a subject, but she wants nearly as happy or vibrant as when she was out in the rain. Everything changed and she didn’t make a fuss, but her face tells the story that matters to her.
This is what photography is for me – stories. Not just posing a subject and snapping the best images, but putting them in scenarios to elicit an emotional and expressive reaction. That is why I love lifestyle and candid sessions, because my heart is in it for the story of the session.
Enjoy the little glimpse into the mind of my daughter, and the story of a rainy day.
