Fun with Lightroom

As a part of my recent photography class we were introduced to lightroom and all of the glorious wonders it holds for improving your photography. Within the first few hours of learning the program I was immediately hooked and found myself constantly thinking to myself, "so that is how all the models on magazine covers look so perfect". With a blemish removed here and wrinkles magically disappearing from a flick of the "magic lightroom wand" I could take care of that dark shading under my eyes or smooth out my complexion more than mineral makeup ever could... and with all the tweaking I was addicted.



But I also found that you can overdo it. While it was fun removing my husband's five o'clock shadow and I worked diligently revising a friends photo to near perfection, somewhere along the way you can lose the soul of the person. Sometimes what makes people perfect is those wrinkles that they earned from laughing over the years or the freckles on their face from fun summer memories. I want to capture memories and moments, and lets face it, life isn't perfect, so my photos won't be either.



Anyways, Lightroom is also a great program for those just learning photography as it allows you to adjust exposure, lighting and color. Since I am still a "beginner" we focused on editing photos in black and white. So I enlisted my husband to be a model for our final project of the beginner class. He was a super subject and put up with me putting him in different poses and lighting situations. He even put up with me after he was modeling outside our condo, leaning GQ style against a brick wall when a guy in his SUV whistled and cat called him in jest. At least it made him smile.



Here are some of my favorite (edited) photos from our "shoot"



Enjoy, constructive criticism welcome :)