Portrait Photography, Beautification, and Post Production Editing

With the advent of digital photography and editing software, it is now easier to enhance your photos than it was back in the days of film.  Back then, if you had some temporary blemishes, it would take a lot of work for the photographer to fix those.  It might have been better to postpone the session.  Now, with photo editing software, it's relatively easy, although still takes some time.  However, a lot more can be done to make an average photo look like something from a fashion magazine, while still looking like yourself - well, yourself with a professional make-up job, proper lighting, and posing.

If you've fantasized about looking like a top model, now you can.  How much of that look you may want, if at all, is up to you.  Everyone is different, but whatever you want from your photo session, it's nice to know you can have it.  Keep in mind that makeup and lighting are used to highlight your best features or hide your worst ones.  It's not done to make you look like someone else, although it can.

As with everything in life, editing can be overdone to the point where you no longer look like you.  You could end up looking like a mannequin if the editing is not done right.  Just very slight changes to the original can improve photos, but too much can have the opposite effect.  See if you agree in the photos below and which you might prefer.

Original - saw these two lovely young women walking along at Venice Beach, asked them if I could take some photos, they said yes, and here they are.

Enhanced - very slightly

Original

 Enhanced

Original 

Enhanced

Original 

Enhanced Slightly

 Enhanced a little stronger

Original

Enhanced with PortraitPro and fixed in Photoshop

Crop of the enhanced photo - lighting was window lighting just before sunset

And this one is the same one as the one above it, but was purposefully overdone to show what too much can look like.

Original. 

Enhanced.

What can be done in post processing?  Almost anything.  Makeup can be added, skin can be smoothed, lighting can be changed, eyes can be opened more, blemishes removed, etc.  The variations are close to infinite.  However, to get the best results for a professional portrait session, you need a professional photographer who understands lighting, posing, and who knows what you should wear.  You also need your makeup done right for the photo session and be well rested.  But for everyday photos, it's still good to know about proper lighting and how to edit to get the best results.  After all, you still want to look your best, no?

There are those who prefer not to wear makeup for a photo shoot, to not have any post processing done to their images, to look more natural.  However, the posing and lighting are still going to be manipulated to some degree, so why do that and then not follow through to look your best?  I believe how you look and how you present yourself in your portraits can make a world of difference.  It can make you feel more positive about yourself and empowered when you realize how beautiful you are.  A beautiful, well done portrait of someone can totally change how they feel about themselves.  There are two kinds of photography for people - the one where you look like a million bucks, and then the everyday family snapshots.  Both are important.  I wish this technology had been around 30 years ago.  Why?  Here are two images from the same negative of my mother - one is straight out of the camera (that's all that was available back then to me), and one is of the same image using today's editing technology.  I have no doubt my Mom would have loved the updated copy.  These were taken around 1970.

Straight out of camera (Nikon FTn with color film) - minimal makeup

Same photo edited for lighting and makeup

Note:  I took this post down briefly to add this last section to show why I believe photos should definitely help you look your best.  Hopefully, if that is what you want, that is what you would get from a photo session.

Freedom...Loss of Freedom and Censorship

Definition of freedom from Merriam-Webster:
1:  the quality or state of being free: such as
   a :  the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
   b :  liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another:  independence

Censorship, according to Wikipedia (which looks like a perfect definition) is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

Vaccines, Censorship, and your loss of Freedom - If any of you have followed my past posts, listened to the news or have done your own independent research, you would be aware that your freedom is slowly being taken away.  You would know that there is censorship regarding vaccines.  In fact, over the past few weeks, vaccine posts have been disappearing (censored) on FB.  If you are not free to determine what can or cannot be injected into your body or that of your children, you are no longer free.  When those injections can cause permanent and serious injury or death, it then is a human rights violation and a crime against humanity.

You need to really think about that last sentence - how else can you categorize it?  You've been a law abiding citizen, you broke no laws, you complied with vaccine laws, and those laws killed you or your child(ren), or caused permanent injury for which you are then responsible.  Even if it didn't immediately do the above, no one knows the long-term health consequences.  Dementia, Cancer, Autoimmune Diseases such as Arthritis and Diabetes, severe Allergies, etc.  By the time it happens, you may not be able connect the dots, even if vaccines were the cause.  Even when it happens within hours, often they claim it wasn't the vaccine.

My father was in the army in WWII and would not have survived (and I wouldn't be here) if he hadn't been in the hospital when his unit shipped out - none of them were heard from again.  They fought and died for our Freedom.  I'm a Vietnam Veteran having served four years in the U.S. Air Force for our Freedom.  We have military troops now who are fighting to defend our Freedom - the Freedom we are in the process of losing (or have already lost in California and a few other states).

We've had Women's Rights marches, million man and woman marches, protests against this and that.  But who is marching for our (Medical) Freedom?  If you want to keep it or regain it, you must write your elected representatives in Congress and the president.  You need to get everyone you know to do the same, whether you are for, against, or somewhere in the middle about vaccines because this is not about vaccines - it is about Freedom and about the U.S. (and other countries) breaking the Nuremberg Code - you know, the one the U.S. signed.  The Nuremberg Code basically said never again to forced medical experimentation on people.  But here they are, doing exactly that - they don't inform you of the risks, they force it on your children, and so far only adults in certain occupations.

What are the results of all these vaccinations (granted, there are other things causing problems, no doubt, but the U.S. gives more vaccines than any other country)?  The U.S. has one of the sickest populations and highest infant mortality rates of all developed nations and spends the most.  Here's a life expectancy chart from the CIA.  And infant mortality from the CIA (you have to go down to #169 for the U.S).  For Maternal Mortality Rate from the CIA, we're at # 136.  Check this article and chart from Bloomberg - U.S. ranks 50th out of 55.

Some people have accused me of not knowing how to do research or say I'm not a doctor.  You don't need to be a doctor to find the facts, you just have to go to the right sources, such as VAERS, CDC, CIA, Cochran Collaboration, immunologists, virologists, university sites, and doctors sites.  And you need to use some common sense and logic.  Like if you are vaccinated and vaccines are effective, why do you care what I do - you're safe.  And if you are not safe, then vaccines are not effective, so why get them, especially with their known side effects up to and including death?  When I go to an individual's blog or to various organizations sites, I check out the references which lead to many of the above.  I also go to the drug company sites for side effects and the ingredients list.  I check out studies that have been done.  I check out government data and statistics.  And when there are hundreds or thousands of anecdotal reports, then I give those credence, too.  Those who attack others for not doing the research either haven't done their research from independent sources (if at all), are paid trolls, rely on the censored media, work for the vaccine makers, profit from vaccines, or who knows what other reasons they may have.  You can determine who these people are by the words and phrases they use:  "the science is settled," "pseudoscience," "quack," "you're not a doctor or scientist," "conspiracy theorist," or they may resort to other name calling.