Just because you can....

Just because you can…doesn’t mean you should.

This applies to a lot of different scenarios, like for instance still fitting into your high school jeans, texting & driving, and in some cases, I think it also applies to over-editing. It seems to be an epidemic!

In the past 10 years photography has changed drastically, and for the most part good things have come from those changes but when it comes to editing, I’m starting to ask the question “just because you can…does that mean you should?” As I see more and more work leaning toward the subjects almost looking “computer generated” I feel like we are beginning to cross the line and lose the “truth” of who our subjects are.

I’m not talking about touching up a few blemishes or taming down a few wild hairs or covering up the scratch on your toddler‘s nose….I’m talking smoothing skin down to a point where it’s almost cartoon looking, adding so much sparkle to the eyes that they no longer even look human, losing the “realness” of the person. Where do we stop? Where is the line?

This is a question I was just asking myself as I was trying out a new editing program on one of my daughter’s senior pictures. After processing the picture thru the program…I didn’t even feel like I was looking at my own kid anymore, what was left of her was just a computer generated image…..a flawless beautiful image. But here’s the thing, it wasn’t even “her” anymore. The point of photography is art, but it is also a way of capturing the images of the people who matter to us, to help us remember them as they truly were….and I think we might be losing something precious when we airbrush them to the point of not even looking “real“ anymore.

With that said, I will of course continue to tame those wild hairs & touch up that blemish, but when it comes to the sparkle in your eyes, I want that to be real & true….and I think it’s this “truth” that makes your pictures beautiful!

Blog Worthy News!

I know it's been 2 months since my last post, and it's not that I'm not busy doing stuff/sessions everyday...it's that I'm doing TOO MANY things to blog about. 

However, this past week deserves a Blog Post.

Rewind back a year or so from today, I was driving down 116 and happened to look out the window and saw an old cool looking brick building in the middle of Hanna City.  My first thought was "that would make such a cool studio".  Of course that was just in passing and I didn't think too much more about it until I was with my husband a few weeks later and we drove by again and I brought it up to him.  It had this row of windows at the top of it that would let lots of light in and looked like it had super tall ceilings.  The other thing we noticed at this time is that it looked vacant, however there was no "for sale/rent" sign in the window so there was no way of knowing what was going on w/it.

A few days later I decided to go into the store next door specifically to ask if they knew anything about the building.  The lady behind the counter says "yes, it's my daughter's and she's a photographer and they plan to fix it up to use for her busines."  End of story.....right???

Fast forward to last week...
My husband is driving thru town and notices there is a "for sale" sign in the window!  He calls me and I call the #, we set up a time to see it at the end of the week.   And we both start praying...

My prayers went something like this....."Father, I don't really want to start another project...I am busy, I am tired from the last one, my family is tired, my husband is working 10 hr days...I don't know the future....but I know YOU do, I know my company is Yours, our money is Yours, so whatever Your will is for us, I ask that you protect us from making a foolish decision."

I have never really had a lot of debt or overhead w/my company.  All of my equipment I was able to save up and pay cash for so this was a big step for me and I went to my Compass for direction....my Bible.  I'm reading thru the Old Testament and on Friday morning I was at the end of Proverbs...just happened to work out that way right???  So Proverbs 31 talks about a woman, who works hard, who invests wisely, a woman who basically "takes care of business".  So going to see the building that evening...even though it will need work, even though I'm tired & busy, I had a peace that it's OK for us to go thru w/this project.

Saturday we put in an offer, it was accepted less than an hour later, and we closed this morning. 
So here we go again w/being overwhelmed & under staffed:)  There's a verse that says His strength is made perfect in our weakness....so I'll be looking to His perfect strength to get us thru these next couple of months!

 

The building has an interesting history...it was built in 1900 as the first bank in Hanna City.  There is even the original vault.  This vault is pretty much staying where it is (22 inch thick walls) so I'm thinking "dressing room"?

right now we're just going over ideas and checking stuff out, no real projected move in date but hopefully sometime in the beginning of 2013 we'll be moved in....hopefully:)