Early Birdies

Well, if you know me, you know I love creating something new for a good cause. And there was definitely a worthy one last weekend. Here's some background. My little niece was born in 2008, eight weeks early. At 4 lbs 9 oz, she was super healthy and a fighter, but she still spent time in the NICU. She is now a healthy little one-year old, but all preemies aren't this fortunate. Enter the March of Dimes Walk for Babies. Their goal is to decrease the risk of premature delivery in pregnant mothers and to provide better care for those oh so little ones. My kids and I loved seeing all the children, especially many sets of twins walking with us. We walked in support of the Team "Early Birdies", specifically our three favorite preemies, Haven, Addie and Emma.

My sister's sweet family

Baby love as we were walking.

How much is too much?

I appreciate the work of skilled photographers more and more over the years. They are able to first capture the image and then take what they have and make something fantastic out of it. How much of the image is pure from the minute the photo was taken isn't always easily understood at first glance. So many things can be accentuated or downplayed in the photo editing stage. I don't see this as compromise in any way, even though it's getting easier by the day with digital editing in photoshop. I basically did the same things in the dark room when developing photos as I do now, but now it's really fast and I don't have to inhale toxic fumes. Here's a quick photo, I've been working on tonight. How much is too much editing? When can you start to tell what's been changed? I'm working on my eye for pulling out what's important while maintaining the integrity of the original image. What do you think?

Before

After