Heather and Jon wanted some photos with their dog Macey, who they affectionately refer to as Maniac. She's an Australian Shepard mix who started off with a lot of energy at the beginning of our shoot, and wished to run free, as it was her first visit to the beach. She calmed down as she got used to the environment, and hung out by herself while we snapped some shots of just Heather and Jon, including an anniversary shot with last year's photo. As with previous shoots at this beach, we were lucky enough to have a big ship go by during our session.

On a personal note, prior to now, I’ve done all my editing with Windows Photo Gallery (free for Windows users).   It is quite powerful for a basic tool, and I highly recommend it to Windows users who want to improve their straight out of camera (SOOC) photos (just make sure you download the latest version).  This program has served me incredibly well, but I’m ready to take my editing to the next level.  I purchased Adobe’s Lightroom, which is the gold standard editing program for professional photographers, and took a class on it, as to be honest, I had never seen it in use before, which was kind of intimidating for me.  The class was great, and I’m proud to say this is my first session edited in Lightroom! 

A before and after is included so you get an idea of why photographers edit, and you can too!  We brighten colors, lighten shadows, increase contrast, crop, reduce noise, sharpen, and obsess over which of the 10 photos of a particular pose is the best for you!