When you see my final image images on my blog or social media, you would usually see a combination of gorgeous light, cool locations and people captured authentically.

This post is about what you DON’T see. You would be amazed at what I retouch. You don’t get to see the litter which I moved before we started shooting in that cool urban spot. You don’t see the dog that ran into the middle of my shot while we were getting the one year old to take a few steps. You don’t see the large pimple that always seems to appear on the morning of the shoot. You don’t see the snot. There’s a lot of snot. I’d like to humbly say that I am getting pretty quick at retouching snot. I am not sure whether I can add this to my CV skill set.

You don’t see the kids meltdowns, which require a time out and maybe a snack.  You don’t see the two year old that would not stop running away from me for most of the session. You don’t see the random man that deliberately photo bombed the perfect family shot at sunset. I’m still a little mad about that one…

But, these stories are all part of the experience of the day; the good, the bad and the snotty. So while I do move the litter, and wait out the meltdown, I always allow the real to sneak back in. I keep that image with your son’s huffy pose. I keep the ones of the goofy expressions that I asked you and your kids to pull.  I keep the shot with your baby’s bottom lip out. And I love when parents will tell me how much they love these images, because these are ‘so them’.

But the snot, that’s got to go. We all know that’ s not going to make it into the family album. So I retouch out a lot of snot. Photography is a glamorous job really.