This afternoon, I had the privilege of meeting this officer and of photographing both him and his beautiful wife (expect images of her “coming soon” to this blog near you).  They’re from the East Coast of this great nation and happen to be visiting a photographer-friend of mine. But I might be saying too much already.

Suffice it to say that I shot this true patriot and he lived to tell about it, as did I.

You, on the other hand, may not be so lucky.  Unless you click the “About” link on this blog and contact me to set up a session.

I knew there was no way to get good balanced lighting in this image. Erin likes to sit on the windowsill of my sixth floor office and watch the sun going down while we chat about the day’s happenings.  The sun coming in that window is just too strong and the flourescent lighting in my office is unable to balance it out.

A flash — such as the 580 EX II, not yet purchased at the time— or perhaps even a reflector inside combined with a diffuser held in her hand outside could have balanced things out so I could, as one of my photographer friends likes to put it, “get it right in the camera.”  But I had a feeling that if I shot it just right I could get it into Photoshop and do something nice with it there.

First stop, however, was Adobe Lightroom 2, where I did as much tweaking as the program would allow before sending it over to Photoshop CS4 for some additional work and finishing touches.

I think you’ll agree it worked out quite nicely.  But, then, it’s hard to screw things up when you have one of the world’s more beautiful women perched upon your windowsill.