Photo Editing

I spent most of the day today editing photos. One of the beauties of the digital world is that you can take a zillion photos and be assured of getting a handful of truly amazing shots. (You can also be a pretty marginal photographer and get improve the results with the help of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.)

Dan Schoedel once told me I had 'mad cropping skills' and I have to confess that I actually really enjoy going through the raw footage and making the photo look just right. Bruce Campbell--another photographer friend--said the most important part of really good images is in isolating the beautiful part of the photo and eliminating the mundane. (You can view Bruce's work on flickr. It is art.)

For Alex and Bethany's set, I went black and white.

This was less of an artistic decision and more driven by Alex's white shirt--which threw the colors off. I had forgotten that the professional photographer we use at work always tells our consultants to avoid wearing white. (If you happen to live in the Dallas area, his name is Dwight Smith, and he is incredible at capturing personality in his portraits.)

In any case, it was a great afternoon of me doing something I love to do while John played video poker on his laptop (something he loves to do). Wish we could do it again tomorrow, but we should probably go to work.

Photography Day

Today I took my niece, Bryn, out to shoot her senior pictures.

We took some at Bishop Arts and others on the canals at Las Colinas (like this one). We even took some in front of this really cool door on a house that was for sale in Kessler Park. (Which fortunately was vacant.)

Bryn was actually very easy to shoot. She wasn't self conscious and she is very photogenic. Bryn also has a good eye for composition and was able to see the shots with me--which was cool.

Later in the afternoon, I finally made good on a promise to Bethany's friend, Alex, do do a photo shoot with her.

Of all the photos I took in the afternoon, this one was my favorite. We got some really good images throughout the day, but this one random laughing moment was truly the best.