Have you ever wondered how the images go from a file in my camera to hanging on your walls? It's all a part of the process, and the post-process is one of my favorite things about being a photographer.

I love images. It's why I do what I do. And during editing I get to decide which images speak, which are important and which will be loved.

2018 marks 6 years since I started this photography business Ivy Impressions. As a photographer I continually strive to improve at my craft, develop my artistry and perfect my process. I learned photography with a fully manual camera, shooting black and white film. I now shoot with two different digital SLR camera bodies and a variety of lenses. 

One area that I have really worked on is honing my process during editing. Back in my film days I'd shoot and develop the film, make a contact sheet of the negatives, and from there choose which images to print larger. When I started shooting professionally, I was using my digital SLR cameras. It's very easy to shoot hundreds of images in a short amount of time! I spent HOURS culling through the images shot at each session. Then more hours editing the chosen images to my style. I would spend many, many hours on the post-processing of each and every session, putting love into each and every image I delivered.

Over the years, as my style developed and I really learned what type of imagery I want to deliver, that post-processing time frame has shortened. I can now move easily through the culling process. If I shot 300-500 images at your session, you will probably see about 50 of those (that’s the beauty of digital!). First I do a quick run-through checking the technical aspects – believe it or not, I do not shoot a technically perfect image every time! If an image isn’t technically up to par, it’s dumped. Next, I go through all the images again and dump anything that isn’t cohesive with my style or my vision for the session. Lastly, I go through all the images again and select only the ones I feel are the very best. What makes an image ‘the very best’? Sometimes it’s the lighting, the pose, the eyes, the mood, the emotion or the interaction. Most times, it’s a combination of all of those things.