Making your own Fashion Photography - Before and After Editing - Behind the scenes

I posted this photo to wish my son's girlfriend a Happy Birthday, and a photo magazine messaged me to see if they could publish it. Of course I said yes, and sent them the series from both Cozumel and Chichen Itza.

You can see how it looked on my Instagram. 

Here's a Behind the Scenes of how we got one of the shots below.

The plan was to visit the Pyramids of Chichen Itza with the part of my family who could go, including my two sons and my daughter-in-law and youngest son's girlfriend. We would just be there for the day as it was a stop on a cruise itinerary. It had been on my bucket list and I had made skirts I thought would mimic the shape of the pyamid if I did it correctly.

1. For more ideas and locations, or for Senior Pictures for boys or girls, check out my website: Dallas Photographer or follow me on Pinterest Dallas Senior Pictures

The reality of the situation was not as vacationy, as I've explained above. I had brought my off-camera flash and trigger so I could underexpose for the background, get low, and light up my models with the lighting. For reasons, I'm sure they didn't even know themselves, they didn't allow me to bring in my lighting equipment. I thought later it might have been because they wanted to protect the artifacts inside, but they were still observing covid protocols and we weren't allowed inside. 

Regardless, if you aren't using lighting, this may be more helpful, because I had to edit more extensively as a result.

I was happy with the result and felt like it was close to what I had envisioned.

You can see what I did to process the image in the directions above: 

1. Straight out of Camera - it's too bright, but I didn't want her face too dark.

2. I darkened the background and increased the black point for the entire photo.

3. Of course, the people in the background needed to be edited out. It was super busy.

4. The seams in the dress needed to be eliminated, and filled out on the bottom.

5. Additional color and exposure edits to taste. 

PS. It was so stinkn' hot that August day!