Patience is a Virtue

I do admire photographers who come back from a shoot and within hours are posting lots of edited images, but as most people know I am not one of those photographers! Rather boringly before I do anything I copy the images to my computer and then straight away make at least one backup, plus I leave the images on the card as an additional temporary backup – nothing like being cautious!

I also don’t edit images straight away as I like to take a detached view of them, and it’s difficult to do that when you still have in your mind the thoughts of what a great time you had on the shoot. This would also be the best thing to do if the shoot hadn’t gone that well as you’d probably have less positive thoughts in your mind, fortunately that’s not something I’ve had to  contend with so far.

Unfortunately while I am very organised with the backups, I am rather less organised with my editing schedule. I will usually begin editing images from a shoot either because I just randomly remember it, or see it in the LightRoom catalogue, when sitting down for an editing session, or after receiving a diplomatic message from a model enquiring whether I liked the images – I’m actually quite happy to receive a little prod from models about images ;)

Sometimes I revisit a shoot, and will make different selections or editing styles, especially when the shoot has been very productive as it was with a shoot earlier in the year with the wonderful Elle Beth. I did a post with some images earlier in the year.

The location we used had a wonderful staircase, and I posted a few using them in my previous post. However, when a model produces so many great poses, and I’ve tried different viewpoints and  compositions, it seems a shame to only show one or two from that set. Here’s a beautiful diagonal pose showing her super figure.

And I often prefer a wider shot as in this case, with the stairs providing a great lead-in to Elle. Many of my images look straight, which is what I intend, but if you look at the unedited version afterwards you can see the amount of work I often have to do, including removing me on the right hand side, and removing that big highlight at the top!

Edited version

Unedited version

And this image is similar to one from the previous post where there was a great pool of light, but with a slightly different viewpoint, and a really epic pose from Elle using the dado rail as a ballet rail.

This is from a set I hadn’t previously edited and as well as the great pose I especially like the figure in the painting looking away!

Another from a new set, I love the patterned wallpaper and all that wood.

This was an interesting little setup, with Elle interacting with it and doing a bit of shelf-levelling :)

There’s loads of great poses from this set, with good double framing, both the doorway I am shooting through and then Elle framed with the doorway behind.

I’ve edited one previously from this set against the copper of the bar, and this is another super pose and great painterly reflection

And to finish we all know the feeling of waiting to get served at the bar, so here’s Elle’s method of trying to attract the bar staff’s attention!

Many thanks to Elle Beth for a really enjoyable and productive shoot, and I’ve started collating a list of ‘shoots to edit’ so let’s hope that keeps me on track in the future, but don’t hold your breath.