Now, just because I can’t show you any images doesn’t mean I can’t tell you something about the experience of the images in my mind.

I always love it when a couple really shows their love for each other and their family. The warm glow that I experienced on this occasion from seeing the essence of family shown in real life is an experience I’d never trade for anything.

There’s something about the pure joy of parents with a child that always lights my soul on fire.

My mind is filled with these moments from other sessions, too, as I think about it. When that child is young and learning to walk or older and laughing uncontrollably. When they’re being tickled or even sometimes sulky teenagers that the parents are just okay with…

There’s a joy in family portraits that I find addictive. Even though most of the work in my portfolio is with corporate now, working business to business and creating professional branding photography for corporations, I still love those brief moments with families that make me smile with the joy of time together. So today instead of showing you a bunch of photographs that I can’t show you and won’t out of respect for these people, I’m just going to tell you about the things I remember. The stories that form little pictures in my mind, little moments from times long gone now. Smiles. Laughter. Silliness. Those carefree moments of pure togetherness.

I find as I get older and my life is stressful I tend to forget moments that matter. I rely pretty heavily on my personal phone for taking the photos of those moments and sometimes when I forget them, I regret it quite a bit. It is one of the true joys of being a photographer to actually capture moments like that for people in a professional manner so they can’t forget the good times they shared – or lose their images, with my sophisticated backup system in place.

I’ve heard the phrase “unforgettable moment” but I don’t really believe it. Not anymore. Everything is forgettable to some degree. Our memories degrade. For some of us who get really unlucky, they degrade even more.

Photography is one of the ways we as a society deal with that and it’s something that I love being a part of.

If it has been a long time since you’ve had family photos, especially if you’re the main family photographer, and you’re not usually in the photos of the family, I sincerely encourage you get some professional family portraits done soon.

And every time you remember, when something great is happening, hand your phone off to your spouse or friend sometimes. You never know which photograph is going to be the one that you will remember forever and come back to again and again.

Note: No photos attached to this post belong to the family whose photos were kept private.

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Election Campaigns need fantastic photography

“I know the time is tight, but I’m hoping you might be able to fulfill my wish.” That’s what Michelle said in her first email to me – along with the fact that she was married to a former happy client, Garth Prince. Garth has the amazing honour of having referred the most individuals to me of any client, ever. He’s pretty fantastic, and his wife was amazing to work with, too. 

Michelle ran for District Representative in the Edmonton Public Teachers’ Provincial Executive Council. Even though she did not win on this occasion, I was so impressed with her campaign materials that she created from our session together that I thought, instead of posting just my photos, I’d show you what she came up with for her campaign. All of the base photos below are from our personal branding session together.

Are you looking for a photographer so you can run for some sort of public or private office?  I would love to work with you on your personal branding.

Learn more about Personal Branding sessions with Admire Studios

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In the busy Fall season, it can be a little tough to find a time to get everyone together for a portrait session – but taking the time to get together with a professional photographer in a beautiful place to create lasting memories is a special opportunity – which this family took for the first time thanks to a sisterly gift. It turned out that the best time for us to work together was Thanksgiving Day – I do sometimes work on holiday weekends – and we greeted each other with a Happy Thanksgiving on arrival!

I’m vaguely related by marriage to this awesome family, as I found out when my husband’s cousin’s wife sent me a message. “My sister is in Edmonton, and I would love to get her a photographer to take some nice pics!” She connected with me and paid for the session – a great gift. (I have physical gift cards available if you want to send a gift to someone in Edmonton yourself.)

Some families simply glow with joy from just being together, and this one was like that. I was struck by the comfort I can see in their photos, and the affection they share. The beauty of the area and the beauty of their natural relaxation was refreshing to me after a long week of editing.

This daughter and Mom look so much alike! I always enjoy observing facial expressions and gestures that prove that people are related, it’s so interesting how families are alike and different in such a variety of ways.

A small, not-too-steep path gave us a way to the shoreline, where we spent some time right beside the water. I always think that water is a beautiful backdrop all on its own.

It was fun to see a girl twirling in a dress. There’s something so special about having a new dress to twirl about in, especially a dress that sparkles and shines!

I had a wonderful time with this family, and only have a few more sessions left before winter comes. Of course, I hope I’ll get to do some winter family portraits this year, because they’re rare, and I love family photos in all seasons!

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At one point, their daughter was starting to become a bit hungry, and so we paused the session while she munched happily on a few slices of melon. I explained that it’s not uncommon when working with toddlers to have to stop for a snack – and that I wasn’t in a rush. I always plan bubble time around sessions for things like this.

One of the other super fun things about working with toddlers is how they react to me. Immediately on meeting me, I got an adorable leg-hug! What a great way to get started. Also, I always love meeting the favourite toy when I’m with toddlers – in this case, a little bunny named Hug-Hug.

I was so pleased to see that we’re still dealing with peak Fall foliage this week. Fall family photos always best, in my opinion, with the glorious leaves still mostly on the trees, and a bit of green still evident in the world. That gives the most colours for me to play with in camera. But I can take photos throughout the autumn season with families and maximize the best spots.

Fall is my very favourite season, and Fall portraits are one of the very best ways to make the best of Edmonton’s glorious river view parks. Rundle Park, which is right beside where I live, is one of the places I always enjoy working with families. It was the perfect place for this session for sure!

This session was redeemed from the 2019 Adoption Options online Silent Auction. I think that helping families grow by donating high quality, affordable family photos is a great way I can support them! If you are hoping to adopt a child in Alberta, they might be the choice for you.

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The difference between editing and re-touching
To edit a photo is to do the following three things. 

1. Exposure Correction

Ensure that the exposure (the scale of brightness to darkness) is perfect for each image and neither excessively overexposed or underexposed, including changing the exposure of part of the image. In film days, this process of ensuring every area of the photo was properly exposed was a time-consuming  one called “dodging and burning,” but it’s often a quicker process for modern editors. I find that I need to do additional work on average 1 in 10 photos, but I don’t consider this re-touching.

2. Crop

Ensure that the photo is “cropped” so it visually framed inside the boundaries without any distracting elements, at the best size. Most photos I crop well in camera – but sometimes this is not possible, especially with portraits, or if I am using “prime” lenses without a zoom capability and I am personally unable to move closer to an object or building. For example, if there’s a busy roadway in front of me, but the image quality would be better without a zoom lens, I might choose to crop it during editing process. For portraits, this often means re-cropping a candid photo to better follow the rules of composition. 

3. Color Balance

Ensure that the final color or black and white finish is pleasing to the eye, or “color balanced.” The two most common kinds of color balancing are between blue and yellow and between green and magenta. The former is somewhat a matter of taste – the latter can make or break a photo easily. The third part of color balancing involves saturation and vibrance – measures of color that are, like good sound mixing, invisible when done well and easily notable when done poorly. Finally, some images may require a particular color to be edited – perhaps a purple looks blue because of lighting conditions – this individual color can also be edited. Again, I wouldn’t typically call this work retouching. 

4. Very Basic Retouching Work

Extremely basic retouching – such as removing a spot or two from an image, or a single piece of garbage from a lawn, is always included in my editing work.

Unedited vs. Edited

What I consider Retouching is all the additional work done after the editing of a given set of photos is completed, and it will be different work depending on what kind of photo it is.

Retouching a Portrait

The most well known kind of retouching is what is done to models in magazines. This kind of retouching smooths out and typically lightens the skin, removes any errant hairs and blemishes (like pimples for instance) and lightens or darkens parts of the face for more dramatic effect, such as a makeup artist does with contouring. 

My headshot photography offerings typically include the kind of retouching shown above. In the example photo, you can see that skin has been lightened, wrinkles reduced but not completely removed, and stray hairs around the person have been removed.

For many, this idea includes what’s known as “photoshopping” but is technically called the Liquefy tool – to manipulate the size and shape of anything in a photograph. This is typically the treatment that people are talking about if they ask a photographer to make them look thinner.
I’m going to be completely honest. I have extreme moral issues with the liquify tool. Whenever possible, I completely avoid using it on the human body, especially for the sole purpose of taking off a few pounds. I try to only ever use this tool when I have made a posing error that makes you look larger than you are, which doesn’t happen often.

Retouching Other Types of Photography

Retouching occasional candid photographs of events, photos of buildings, and even landscapes is also included in my service. I do not retouch most of my images, however, if there is, for example an obvious garbage can in the background of a photo taken in a park, or a large weed in the foreground of the grass, that is something that I will typically take out.

Re-creating Grad Photos

Sometimes I will recreate a grad photo for a client. Here’s an example of a full recreation to the original colour and type of grad gown, stole, and hat from the graduates high school, Lillian Osborne. In this case, the hat was photographed using the same lighting situation on the same day, but on my husband’s head, because the hat I had was a bit too small for this man’s glorious noggin. In most cases, this kind of reconstructive work is fairly expensive, but for something like a graduation or wedding, often a long term investment.

Retouching Architectural Photos

Retouching for exterior architecture photos may include removing odd-looking objects inside a window, external pipes, grafitti, and other unsightly objects or blemishes on the property or grounds. Note the green squares in the original photo below to see where this photo has been retouched.

Face Replacement and Photo Splicing

The term for taking two photographs that are very similar except for, say, the facial expression of one or more people in part of the photo is called splicing. This is a technique I have commonly used when one person is blinking, or achild in a family photo is making an undesirable expression. If a photographer does their job right, you will never even notice that this operation has occurred. The smallest and easiest kind of adjustment is to take a small portion of the face from a very similar photo, typically taken within the same two or three second period, and graft it onto the face of one individual in a large family portrait. Other photos you have to replace entire people. Some photos may have grafts from five to seven other images.

 I very seldom have a family photo session or large group portrait at an event where this is not necessary. Thankfully, after having been a professional photographer for 13 years, I’ve become very adept at making these changes. I also use photo splicing when I’m doing work in the interior of a business and want to either eliminate clients, or make it seem as though the space is busy. I might layer 5 or more images to get the effect of a crowded mall, for instance.

Hopefully these examples help you to understand the difference between photo editing and retouching in my work.

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I told her that I would be very pleased to work with her on creating soft, warm, and inviting portraits for her counselling services. As someone who has “judged a book by its cover” for a psychologist before online, I felt that creating a photo for her could potentially help others choose to get help, too.

At the time, COVID-19 restrictions were quite heavy, so I had to let her know that due to physical distancing restrictions prohibiting us from using my home as a studio space, and the government’s recommendations that contractors like myself do not enter the homes of others at that time for non-essential purposes, I did not think it met the criteria for physical distancing for us to work together on headshots in studio.

As a result, we chose to work together at Rogers Place, across from the Mercer Tavern. Mercer has a lovely set of chairs outdoors, and we were working together in the morning, so I knew they’d be safe by evening for others.

Taryn decided to book a hair and makeup appointment with my recommended artists at Blush Artistry. They did an amazing job, as you can tell.

We had a companionable time, me in my mask and her posing gently for photos. I gave her a lot of direction at her request, making sure she had a relaxed, inviting posture, giving her time to breathe, and sometimes asking her to move around – typically, freezing in place for photos is only appropriate for studio portraits.

I think her photo really stands out. If you’re looking for a caring counsellor, I’m certain that Taryn Ellens would be an amazing choice.

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Meeting Yazeed, who is a personal trainer in Edmonton, was an interesting way to spend a Sunday evening. Evolve Strength Downtown Edmonton gym was a great experience for me, too. It’s a really nice gym, honestly, nicer than I expected. I essentially asked him to do a workout that he would appreciate himself, and the kind of workout that he would like to do with his clients. Evolve was nice enough to allow us to do a photoshoot in their gym, and I was careful to ensure that there were no recognizable strangers in the background.

I always find fitness photography to be an interesting genre. It has been strongly influenced by the televisation of boxing and mixed martial arts events, not to mention pro wrestling. There is a tradition for fitness photography: it is high contrast, high drama. I enjoy the challenge of getting in close with sharp lenses and really capturing the effort, with a bit of grain and lots of contrast, up close and personal photos that make an athlete look epic are a challenge I enjoy pursuing.

I actually got started doing a lot of sports photography when I was in high school. The Bedford Road Invitational Tournament or BRIT, as it was known, was held at my high school every year. And for more than four years I photographed there, even after I was an alumni. Basketball is fast paced, full of muscular, lean guys. I gotta say, I enjoyed my work.

Working with Yazeed to meet his needs of advertising his services as a personal trainer was a pleasure. He is personable and got comfortable with me quickly. He even taught me a little bit about some of the machines that I wasn’t quite as familiar with, though I have worked with a personal trainer before. It was interesting to get to know someone else’s favourite exercises. I especially appreciated the variety of different possible exercises he knew for gymnastic rings.

If you’re looking for a personal trainer in Edmonton, it was clear to me as someone who has spent some time in the gym in the past that Yazeed really knew his stuff. He said many of his clients are looking to achieve weight loss, and he’s happy to work towards whichever goals you have in mind.

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Tara was really interested in finding something special as a location for us to work in, something uniquely Edmonton. A friend of hers found out that despite the pyramids being closed, the Muttart Conservatory grounds were open, and not only that, but there were beautiful sunflowers. Case closed!
Once we settled on a space and time to meet up, it was a beautiful sunny summer day, maybe a bit too hot for my comfort while wearing a mask so I could safely maintain physical distancing, but such lovely sunshine! I don’t regret the mask at all. We maintained proper distance from each other in part due to my lens choice, which made things easier.

Despite the heat, it took me a little while to get everyone warmed up, and there were clearly more fun things to do in a garden than hang out with Mom and Dad, but in the end, we got some great photos, and I was impressed with some very patient parenting! We pulled out all kinds of tricks to try and get better co-operation, but sometimes when you have a 5-year-old prankster, the smile after he does something completely silly is the very best!

Throughout the session, Tara politely asked for what she wanted. “Can we have pictures of our son among the sunflowers? Just at the edge, of course.” And, “Our friends and family gave us feedback last time that they’d like to see some photos of just us as a couple, can we take some?” I always appreciate working with a client who is willing to communicate their ideas and desires for the session, it makes it easier for me to meet their needs! 
This was my first time taking family photos in Edmonton since COVID, and it was a very long wait. I really appreciated spending time with this wonderful little family.

I donated my time for this session to Adoption Options yearly online Silent Auction. I can’t think of anything more fitting to raise money for helping families grow than by providing high quality, affordable family photos! If you are hoping to adopt a child in Edmonton or Calgary (or other parts of Alberta), perhaps Adoption Options can help you!

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