The quick, still moments of connection that happen when I'm photographing kids is one of the main things that keep me doing what I do. Kids are busy, especially toddlers. They don't want to sit still and have their picture taken so I try all sorts of tricks to get them to stop for a moment and engage with me. I'm chasing after that moment- where we are looking at each other and I can really see them. Sometimes that moment comes easy and other times I have to work for it. For this little busy bee, Miss Piper, I had to work for it. Like most things in life, when you have to work for it, it makes for an extra sweet moment when it happens.

 

I love this one of her checking out the little shorts I put on her. She's like, what am I wearing?!

and more "core" work...

So close to crawling!

and a few more that are just sweet, enjoy!

Happy Tuesday friends!

Come check out the new site, Farrah Braniff Workshops!

Please pass the link around to your friends. I would very much appreciate a tweet, Facebook share, forward or whatever you can do!

If you have any requests for classes, please pass them on. I am also looking for creative people to come teach with me. If you know of anyone with a cool crafty skill, please let me know!

It's really crazy what we can do with our images in this day and age! If you can dream it up then it can be done. It takes practice learning the various tricks and it also requires developing a sense for when to keep going and when to stop. We've all seen the picture where the digital artist just went way to far. When you overdo digital retouching, you end up with people that look like mannequins. "Too far" is a matter of taste too and not something that everyone agrees on. Some people disagree with retouching as a whole.

Like everyone else, I have my own ideas about how much is too much. My goal is to make you look just like you, but on a really great day. I would never want someone to see the image and make a comment about it. It needs to look natural.

Today, I thought I would show you a pretty typical example of the kinds of things we do to my images. Here is an image straight out of the camera with NO retouching or cropping.

Overall it's fine but there are a few issues that we need to address.

The biggest issue was how the woman's earring looks like it is attached to the man's nose. That had to be fixed for sure! I removed the earring completely. Next, I removed some of the stray hairs along the man's neck above his collar. I also removed some stray hairs on the woman's face between her hairline and eyebrow. I also cleaned up the stray hairs right where the tops of their heads met. I removed the doorknob hole on the doors in the background as well as another dark spot. Then I removed the second catch light in the little girl's eyes and brightened the irises very slightly to show off their pretty brown color. I used a filter to smooth the skin tones overall. Lastly, I finished it off by adjusting the crop. Here is the final version:

I know that some of these issues were small and I could have let them go but I definitely think the details matter. I think it is part of what people are looking for when they hire me to create photos for them. I like how the little bit of polish makes the message stronger and allows your eyes to move around the image without hanging on little distractions.

What about you guys? Do you have any opinions on how much is too much? Do you have any before and after images that you would like to share? If so, please leave your thoughts and links in the comments sections below. You can also add your images to my Monday Lesson Flickr Pool. We'd love to see them!

My studio is pretty dreamy, I have to say. I've spent a lot of time tweaking this and that and making it comfortable. I love it there. There is, however, one thing I wish I had...a big north facing window for shooting natural light portraits. I do have two huge doors that open to the outside so I decided to try that out for some natural light experimentation. It's super hot here at the moment and my experiment made all the grown ups in the room sweat but Miss Blakeley didn't have a problem with it at all!