I take pictures, and see beauty in the simplest things. After the photo is captured, the process of editing gives me adrenaline. I become engulfed by technology and software, and my true passion emerges. I edit because a raw photograph cannot express the full idea alone. I edit because I love to edit, and transform an image from beautiful to breath-taking. As a retoucher, I stand firmly behind my techniques, skillset, and decision making process, when it comes to adjusting a digital photograph. When a digital camera captures a raw photograph, it can capture too much and too little, all visible yet in a 2-dimensional form. I assess an image, remove distractions, adjust the subjects appearance to parallel how we see the subject with our naked eye, and most importantly, breathe life into the image, utilizing highlight and shadow enhancement (or contouring) to give more of a 3-dimensional, life-like appearance. I don't believe in manipulating a photograph to such an extreme that the subject no longer appears as itself. My goal is to move an image into a space where the subject appears how the subject FEELS they appear. I fight the comment "I hate pictures of myself."
