A Dash of Photoshop

It was a perfect, crisp fall evening in early November 2019. November 10th to be exact, the day my nephew Landon (my subject) turned 6 months old. I just got home from work and I had been talking with my sister all day about taking photos of my nephew for his big 6 months. We were sitting in my room trying to figure out what we wanted to do; have it inside on the woodland themed blanket that had 1-12 months sewn into it, have it inside with a big sheet just draping and we create a cute scene, we had so many ideas. While we were sitting in my room brainstorming I was looking outside and was thinking of ways I could make a dead, lifeless trees look good. I saw that there were a bunch of leaves, painted beautifully with yellow and orange colors and immediately, I knew I needed to make a pile so I could sit my nephew in the middle and get some adorable photos. I unfortunately couldn’t find a rake so I had to use a broom and swept the surrounding leaves into a big pile in an area that had the sun slowly setting in the background. I captured so many photos; some of him just in HDR, some in portrait mode (my personal favorite and what this photo was taken in), some of him falling, laughing, eating leaves, and this one. This one photo. The only photo I got of him looking at the camera and it is perfect. His hands softly raised with a soft gaze into the camera with a leaf pressed gently against his lips. Out of the hundreds of photos I have taken of him in his 9 months of life, this one photograph still remains my favorite. After Landon queued that our photoshoot was coming to an end (became a Kim kardashian crying face mess), I went inside and started browsing through the hundred photos I had just taken. Some bad, some good, some blurry. I then decided to go through the best and started editing. When it came to this photo, I knew I wanted to make Landon even more of the main focus and I wanted to enhance the portrait mode effect so I went into photoshop express and did just that. I blurred the background and foremost leaves more to focus more of the attention on Landon and his soft composure. I then went into my favorite app when it comes to photography,VSCO, so I could add a filter. I wanted something warm; something that highlighted the yellows in the leaves and the red in his plaid as well as complimenting the black, grey, and blue. The filter A4 did just that — and it added a touch of moodiness in the clouds behind that makes Landon pop even more. After playing with some other settings, I also decided to put the exposure down to -1.1, as well as bumping the contrast up +0.7. I sharpened up the photo a small amount as well just to to bring attention to Landon’s soft features and dark chocolate eyes. The moodiness of the background against the warmth and light of the subject along with the golden leaves makes a sort of glow on Landon and makes your eyes automatically drawn to him. His subtle gaze making the world seem still for just as long as you stare into his eyes. All of this possible with the little help of a phone with three cameras, a dash of photoshop and a sprinkle of VSCO.