During a photography session, or after it, I often get the question, “Will you Photoshop my wrinkles?” or “Do you airbrush the pictures?” The unfortunate thing about questions like this is that they mostly come from women. With actresses and other celebrities fighting back against magazines altering their appearance and the fact that we live in a modern world, it would be nice to see the rest of us do this as well.

When asked for additional photo editing I usually reply with, “Technically yes, I can do it, but I think you look beautiful just the way you are.” I believe in natural photography, I believe that a photograph should be a relatively accurate representation of a person’s looks. It doesn’t matter if that photo was taken on a film camera or a digital camera. I consider myself a photographer, not a digital artist. Digital artists are great in what they do; it is just a different form of creative expression in my opinion. My job as a photographer involves making you look beautiful while you are in front of me – using the right light, the right angle, but mostly helping you to feel relaxed and at your best.

When people ask me for extra Photoshop work, yes, I can do it, and for me it’s not a bad deal because I will usually charge more money for the extra time I spend doing the work. But the reality is, it’s not about the money. I believe in truth in photography and just because we have the tools to alter images doesn’t mean we should always use them. I believe we should be proud of who we are and our looks and it should not matter if we are two years old, twenty, or eighty.

At D Studios, we will always go through the images from a session and remove any blemishes. Pimples appear and disappear so it makes sense to remove those from an image. Babies and children get scratches and bruises, so it makes sense to remove those as well. When it comes to the natural signs of aging however, our faces are our faces and we should be proud of how we look. Yes, many of us are not in our twenties anymore, and that’s fine.

I have a few wrinkles and a couple of age spots on my face. I don’t like them and yes, I could Photoshop them out of any pictures I’m in, but why? If I want to see a picture of myself without wrinkles and age spots I can look at one that was taken when my face didn’t have any. Now my face has them, and when a picture is taken of me, I want it to be an accurate representation of my appearance, not a digital painting of what I want to look like.

So please, if you come to D Studios Photography, know that we think you are lovely just the way you are. What makes us a great studio isn’t creating an image on a computer, what makes us great is our relaxed environment that brings out your natural beauty.

“All of these lines across my face Tell you the story of who I am.”

Brandi Carlile – The Story.