In 2017, Paige and Matt graciously let me take their engagement photos. In 2018 I got to celebrate with them on their wedding day, which was absolutely magical. The only hitch? When the photos came back to Paige, she was unhappy with many of them. The original photographer was too busy planning her own wedding that summer to edit to Paige's satisfaction, but a contract had not been signed, so I offered up my editing skills to Paige's disposal.
The water tower and power lines were pretty major eyesores, but fortunately for me, they were mostly in front of a backdrop of sky, which enabled me to edit them out relatively painlessly.
For a lot of the bridal party and family photos, I noticed that the photographer was making nice use of the proportion of grass and sky. The only problem with that: the families' faces were nearly imperceptible. With that large of a group, it's hard to accomplish a shot that features everyone, but with a little readjustment I like to think that I helped focus the frame on the family more while still honoring the photographer's artistic intent.
My availability at the time of this project allowed me to spend a little more time spot correcting this shot and making the replaced pixels look a little more natural.
I have to compliment this photographer's eye. It was tempting to consider overhauling the entire shoot once I was given the reins of this project, but I had to remind myself to use a little restraint and recognize that a good edit is one that compliments an already-good shot. I edited the color and light all manually in Lightroom, with the intent of adding a little whimsy and romance though color, contrast, and luminance. (I think it bears stating that I would not be displaying these in a portfolio if I had used a pre-configured filter.)
Perhaps my favorite edit of the whole bunch, this moment was extremely emotional and precious during the ceremony. Paige was concerned that the photo was lost on the guests in the background. With a few quick tweaks I added an artificial aperture to give this moment the emotional weight it deserved.
