I get a lot of questions about just what goes into the business of photography, and how we get our pictures to look like they do. I'm SO excited about some new things we have coming up (which is why I can't sleep and have been working since 7 this morning). Very soon, you'll see an all new Kendra Pence Photography look, including a new website and blog. We've worked long, countless hours on the new website and blog and have so many ideas of things we want to do daily on the blog. One thing I plan to do is have one day of the week where we do questions and answers regarding your cameras and photography in general. Tons of people have great cameras these days, I see lots of people running around with the Canon Rebel, but do you really know how to use it? It's a great consumer camera and I'll try to answer questions you have. Another designated day of the week, I plan to show you some before and afters and explain just what we do in all the different programs we use to create our own unique look. I giggled one day as I looked at a post on facebook talking about, "those images are amazing and just jump off the page with their vivid colors, how does she do that." Another person responded, "actually, I can do the same thing on my phone, all she does is press the vibrant button." I laughed...if only it were that easy! We've created tons of our own "recipes" over the last few years. I strongly believe that it is very, very important to be technically correct in the camera, but it is just as important to be able to enhance those images through different professional editing programs on the computer. You can't truly be a professional with a deep knowledge of both. I hope when you look at an image produced by KPP, you know instantly that it is one of ours and you know that we've used the proper professional equipment and have spent the time required to make it a beautiful piece of artwork!
My son Ty is my first set of examples. I was dragging out images for the new website and ran across this picture. I'll show you some of the different options I created using the same image throughout. Keep in mind, it took me over an hour to do all the different options, so it's far from pressing a "vibrant" button.
This first image is the original image right out of the camera. Cameras are good, but they aren't good enough to bring out a fully edited image. I believe that anyone can take a good image, but how many can make it a beautiful image. See what you think!
This next image has been edited with our basic edit and then I cropped it just a little bit.
On this one, I took our basic edit and added another layer for a little bit different look.
I took the this one step further. It's a small difference, but still adds another dimension to the image.
This is the same image with one more layer and a vintage finish to it. It took me months to get a vintage look that I loved, tons and tons of trial and error. I love vintage now and our clients are loving it too!
This is our recipe for black and white. We love a very, very vivid black and white. Trust me, it's not just removing all the saturation out of the image, it's a very long recipe to get this look that we prefer.
This is our browntone, again, about 22 steps to create this look!
Isn't it amazing what the combination of highly powered, very complex professional editing programs can do to enhance images. I've been working with photoshop for 5 years now and it's the most overwhelming program I've ever used in my entire life. I can honestly say that I still learn something new every day!!!
What the heck, it's only 12:45am, I might as well show you one more. This is Stella, I loved Stella! She was a fun, very cooperative little lady. I played a bit with her images to show you a few more things!
This image is straight out of the camera. Beautiful girl, but the image is pretty blah!
This is a little more basic editing. We pay attention to the details when we photograph and then make small adjustments when we edit to make sure all our colors our true. That is perhaps one of the hardest things to get right on a consistent basis because there are so many factors that play into every single shot you take. Do you ever see images that look way too yellow or blue or the skin tones are wrong, it's a common problem and a very difficult one to get right on a consistent basis.
This is the same image with a few fun things added. The exact same image :)
This next one is our vintage look. Love it!!! Did I mention that I think this little girl is gorgeous!
The last step is our unique black and white!
Ok, I hope you notice the difference and enjoy this post. More to come, keep checking back. Hopefully the website will be up in 2-3 days with the blog following closely behind! You're going to love it, I promise!!!
