Although I have been shooting for the past 15 years, my editing style has changed over that period of time. I don’t think it is a drastic change, but I have seen how my eye sees things differently and the way I edit has evolved. When I first started I really did not know what I was doing so all my photos were original and raw. The lighting was not even part of the equation, the composition was not even a thought and sometimes having a blurry picture was part of the path to understanding how the aperture worked.

As my editing has changed, one thing that has remained a constant is the fact that I don’t alter what my clients look like in a photo. Most of the photographers I know photoshop a photo to the point where the person in the photo is not a realistic representation of the person who is in real life. I do not believe in altering someone’s appearance to something that is not the real representation.

With all that said, I do photoshop little aspects such as clothing issues, skin issues, perhaps something needs to be removed from the photo when it helps with the storytelling or confidence with the client’s appearance I am all for it.

I think photographers should be more honest with their clients and share in-sites to their editing process and what the client should expect before the photos are taken, that way when the proofs are submitted, the client already has given their personal input as to how they feel about themselves and how they would like to see the photos be processed. By the time the photos are submitted, the client already knows that their issues have been fixed and all they need to do is curate their photos and start posting them.