Addyson & The magic of Dodge & Burn

I had a fun shoot with baby Addyson on Thursday. It was my third time taking her photos since she was born. Her mom is getting an album with photos of Addyson growing up. We went down to her grandma's house and did the shoot out in the yard. The house was beautiful with flowers everywhere, not to mention that Addyson loves the camera (and the camera loves her too)! This shoot was especially important because she has just learned to sit up by herself. I think that for the next shoot, I had better be ready to chase her around, she is growing so fast!

In the two photos below, you can see the difference that a little extra care can do in photoshop. The process is called "dodge & burn" and it originated in the darkroom. It only involves darkening & lightening of specific parts of a photo. It's a lot less time consuming now that we have digital photography, but a necessity, I think, for a more dynamic black & white photograph. I use the "dodge & burn" process on all of my black & white, and tinted photographs.

The top photo is the one that has been worked on, and the bottom photo is just after it was converted to black & white.

Above: After dodge & burn
Below: Before