Blogging, Photo Editing, and the Life of a Photo

I have a love/hate relationship with this blog...mostly love, but there is some hate in there too.

Here's why I love it:

*Allows us to share Randal Jean with family near and far
*Has helped me think more about capturing Randal's life in pictures
*Makes me sit down and remember what is going on in our life as I have to remember details atleast long enough to blog about them
*Creative release
*Furthered my love for photography

Here's what I hate:

*Above mentioned love for photography has now led in to desire to edit every single photo we have before I share it with you
*Photo editing = Lots of time goes in to putting a blog post together....and I don't have much spare time :(

So, I've made a decision to eliminate some of what I loathe when it comes to blogging...

You see, in the beginning when I first started playing around with pictures I had just one type of photo editing software, Lightroom.  Then I dove deeper in to photography (aka became obessed) and I got Photoshop.  Problem is for the past while I have been editing all photos in LR and PS which is taking a lot of time.  Both of these softwares are essential to my toolkit as I prepare to embark on my career as a photographer (hang in there folks, I promise it is coming soon!!!).

Anyhow, I have been thinking a lot lately about the life of a photo.  Some photos if I am being really honest with myself will only live out their life electronically on this blog or maybe end up a small square in a photo book.  Considering we have over 10k pictures of Randal thus far (not even kidding people!) all photos simply will not make it to a print or a frame.  With all that being said I have decided that if the photo isn't something that needs PS editing (ie will be used for my business or printed and framed) then it will only get LR editing.  I hope you all don't mind...my precious angel is just as beautiful with or without editing.

PS- If anybody reading this has been debating LR or PS so they can enhance there own photos I definitely recommend LR to start.  It absolutely rocks to knock out editing a bunch of photos quickly and on top of being great for photo editing it is a photo organizer as well....highly highly highly (got it!) recommended!!!

Here's some examples of what I am talking about...in case you are hanging in there for this post:

This is a pic of Randal at an easter egg hunt.  I love the look on her face...its like she's guarding her eggs and keeping an eye out on the other kids.  Despite the cute look on her face this picture has been shared on this blog and will probably make it in to our 2011 family photobook in a section for April....however, this photo will not be printed on its own and will not be framed.   The top photo is straight out of the camera and the bottom is with LR editing.  Good enough for family blogging and a 2x2 in square in a photo book, right?

Now on to this beauty of a picture.  I am in LOVE with this picture.  I love how the light is coming through her hat and hitting her face.  Oh and the expression on the beautiful face...just makes me want to kiss her all over I tell ya!!!  This photo gets the full treatment :)  This photo has already been printed in mass quantity and in large sizes and was given as Mother's Day gifts to all the moms in our lives.  The top is the photo straight out of the camera, the middle photo is LR edits, and the bottom is the final edit after taking the picture in to PS.