VLV Photography

What a glorious weekend I had!!  I headed to Montana on Saturday for the sunset wedding of Nate & Krista.  Their sneak peek won’t come until after Friday because these two love birds are away on their honeymoon until then!  So…in the meantime, I’ll just talk about my week without my children for the first time ever and what’s cooking in my head about my business.

So…anyone that knows me knows that I’m with my kids 24/7 unless I have a session or unless I’m out of town for a session/wedding.  This has only happened a few times where I’m gone overnight for work;  however, this is the first time EVER where I was without children for more than one or two nights.  My uncle passed away recently and over Memorial weekend was his funeral.  My sister came home from MN for it and previously we had discussed her taking the older two rug rats back with her.  She wanted to have them last summer but they didn’t want to go…and that was with a resounding “NO!”  This time, though, they were more excited about the idea.  They’ve been having a wonderful time and I’ve been enjoying listening to the lack of screaming with them fighting! lol!  Now, I must add that my sister owes me because every summer from the age of 12-18 for two weeks I watched her kids and they were younger yet!  So yep, I’m eating this up! lol!  Now, I still had my youngest {and she’s also the firecracker of the bunch} until Friday when my mom took her.  I will be leaving to meet my sister half-way in Fargo to pick up the older two and then pick up my youngest on my way home.  So today is my last day of freedom from motherhood obligations and I have to say…..it was a MUCH needed break.  For those moms out there who are with your kids 24/7, who don’t work outside the home full-time…..get a break.  You NEED it.  Your sanity will thank you later!  I feel so refreshed and I have been so productive in my business that I have so many ideas that I want to try and such.

Driving to Montana offered me a lot of thinking time and being without the kids for this long has also allowed me to get a lot of the thoughts about my business that I’ve had stuck in my brain finally down on paper.  I have ideas for a ton of blog posts with info that will hopefully be helpful, marketing ideas, and just business in general.

So with all this thinking time….I got to thinking….lol….I’m trying to find the answer to one question that keeps bugging me about my business and that is “What is my style?”  I know my shooting style….I fly by the seat of my pants and use locations that I’ve never been at as inspiration, my clients are my inspiration, and sometimes I think of things to use as props that you’d probably use in your home.  I just go with the flow and that’s my shooting style.  However, when it comes to editing style, I think I’m having an identity crisis.

When you see an image, I want you to know it was me that took it.  I want my galleries to all represent my editing style.  I really feel like I’m all over the place.  What I’ve been doing since I started was always editing the images for color, then when I see an image that screams black and white to me, I edit it for black & white also.  I also see an image and get a general idea of what I want to do with it in order to get the look I’m going after.  What I have found when I looked back at past client orders is that it’s a pretty even split between those that ordered images that I specifically edited how I saw them and then just color.  There are photographer’s out there that are only black & white photographer’s.  As much as I LOVE black & white, it really takes a special image for me to be black & white and not ever image, for me, fits that bill.  There are photographer’s that edit with a vintage style.  My problem is is that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to choose one editing style and stick with it for every single image that isn’t just color.  I would love to, but for me every single session is different and offer different results so I’m not sure how I could be consistent with one style of editing unless it were just full color.

So….I want your feedback.  What do you think about choosing a photographer based solely on their editing style.  If you knew you loved the vintage look, would you choose a photographer who shot that style specifically to have all your images with that look?  Or do you want the classic color images that gives no hint to time-frame or fads?  I don’t know that I follow fads.  I know vintage is hot right now in the photography world and I love that style but declaring it as MY STYLE is difficult for me.  So instead I edit an image I see fit with that style and that may be 5 images or just one.  But again, does this do me a dis-service as no one will ever really be able to look at an image and know I took it?  {sigh}

So to give you a visual aid, this is what I mean…………

My latest blog post shows Kristie & Matt’s sneak peek and for the following images I wanted something soft that didn’t take away from the image like maybe if I would’ve made this image have a lot of contrast or boosted the color.  I do like my color images to have a little boost but I think for this image, I wanted to add to the “lighthearted” mood and that meant lightening up the image a little and making it a little on the “pastel-ish” side.  Yep, “pastel-ish” is now a word.

For the following engagement session which took place last year {btw, Miss Carrie & Mr. Brian are saying “I DO” this Saturday-Woot!}, this image just screamed 1950′s ice cream parlor to me…I wanted this image to have that “back in the good ol’ days kinda love” feel to it.

This following image just screamed COLOR to me…so that’s what I did and boosted it, big time!  And I knew what image to choose to reference  for color boost in this post immediately…check out those baby blues!  Wowza!

Then of course, the classic black and white.  I do prefer mine to have a little contrast.  And in general, more contrast in black & whites is more eye-appealing according to various photography publications/web resources.

Here’s a classic head shot with my black & white post-processing.

So this is what I do but I’m not sure if I’m wasting my time as only 1/2 the time the images are actually purchased.  So really, I’m playing with images for me but I honestly have to say am a little sad when they’re not purchased.  So what do I do?  Do I post the most common editing styles I use and you let me know what style you like best and that’s what I go by when I edit?  OR do I continue doing what I’m doing and NOT have a particular editing style?

I’m tempted to just go straight color with some having more contrast than others and the occasional black & white.  I love color images that are ”full of life” in color {i.e. a little boost to them} and  I feel that way my clients may get their galleries faster and I possibly won’t be wasting my time on edits that never get purchased.  So PLEASE…..I want to hear from YOU!!!!!  Let me know what you want!  I would really have to practice some restraint because editing images can be so much fun but I also have to remember that in order to maintain a business and a normal family life, something has to change.  So give me your input and maybe I can come up with a solution where you, my clients are happy, and so am I {and my family}.

Until next time, Live, Laugh, and Love the one you’re with or next to….no matter what color they are!