Happy Summer!  As of yesterday summer has officially arrived!  The last month has been crazy around here with school getting out and we jumped right into summer activities like soccer camp and visits to the park.  I've been busy with sessions, too, which is awesome!

I thought today it might be fun to share with you the magic of editing.  On Monday I had a really fun session with the beautiful Liv.  She is a dancer and her mom wanted some dance photos of her.  After a lot of back and forth about locations, times, etc. we decided to head on over to Old Town Orange for the session.  Old Town Orange is so charming and is full of fun spots to use as backdrops.  We shot in parking lots, along the street, against funky doors, restaurants, etc.  There is also a beautiful fountain area that is pretty cool.  Liv was up to posing in a bunch of different spots and we had a lot of fun.  

While locations like Old Town Orange are beautiful and fun, there is also a big problem with shooting in public areas like this: the walls and sidewalks are DIRTY!  The walls we shot up against looked like people had thrown coffee against them.  The sidewalks are speckled with years of gum and grime.  I thought it would be fun to share with you some before and after images so you can see just how important hiring a professional photographer is if you want to get beautiful, finished images.  I am also including one black and white edit for fun.  Having the gear and ability to take beautiful photos is only half of my job.  The other half is taking those images and turning them into art.  I hardly EVER share my "SOOC" (straight out of camera) images, but I'm making an exception for this blog post.  Have fun checking out the before and afters!  Scroll further down to see a few more images from this session!

A big thank you to Liv's mom, Jessica, for allowing me the opportunity to take these beautiful photos and for allowing me to share them on my blog!

Ah to be flexible!In this image I cleaned up the wall and the ground. I removed the scratch on her head and white spot other leg. I also changed the wall and outfit colors for fun.

Amazing old wooden doorIn this one I removed the window above her head. I also cleaned up a few little spots that stuck out to me and brightener her up a little. She has a scratch on her forehead that edited out of every image.

For this image I obviously cropped in and straightened the image. I cleaned up the dingy wall and sidewalk. I also removed the lines in the sidewalk and the power box in the wall.

Once again, I cleaned up the sidewalk and dingy wall, removed the scratch on her forehead and the spot on her leg.

I thought it would be fun to also share a black and white edit. This particular image didn't really require any cleanup other than the scratch on her forehead. I always love a crisp black and white edit.