Editing Derby - Behind the Scenes

Music by Audrey Vixen
See finished album at on Facebook

So to show people how I edit a bout photo shoot and also give a rough indication of the time to do it, I time-lapsed my post-production workflow. It isn't something I would normally do, but thought it might be educational for others + it was interesting to review myself afterwards.

My Process Overview

Import all the images into a single folder called 0. Original
Select all images and reject them
Go to first image in the set and review. If it's a keeper, then unflag it, else move on. Repeat till the end of the set.
Once culling is complete, I create a new folder called 1. Rejected
Select all remaining images that are rejected and move them into the Rejected folder I just created.
Select 0. Original folder and start editing on the first image.
eep editing each image and rejecting them if they are as good as I thought they where. Before moving on, if not rejecting the image then give it a rating. Usually 1 star as passable but up to 5 if I think it's really rad.
Once finished, move the newly rejected photos
Upload to my online gallery and social media

I use presets to speed my editing up and a lot of copy & pasting of setting from one image to the next.

Han Grenade

Skater: Han Grenade

Series: Faces of Derby

BEFORE & AFTER - EDITING MENTALITY

Because these portraits where shot at a training camp, most of the skaters where sweaty and flushed from the exercises they had been doing. This is a calculated risk to photograph people like this because they are potentially not going to look the greatest and when using sharp lenses and good lights, all the flaws are going to come out.

My intention of these portraits isn't to make the images as slick as say a fashion or beauty portrait, but to show the skaters as they really are. To me, the blemishes in this style of portrait is actually distracting. I could easily just turn the images to black and white and a lot of the issues would be resolved, but I wanted colour. So my editing philosophy for these portraits is fairly simple. Take out anything that has been added in from exertion, mainly on a skin level. Keep most of the flaws that each skater has normally has (ie. leave permanent marks, etc). Fix any hair or clothes that I find really distracting and overall make a clean profile that doesn't completely show how sweaty and exhausted the skater actually is.

With permission from Han, I have created a basic animated GIF of the above picture edit. Note, GIF only have 256 colours, therefore don't look for detail but watch at the transition.

Beginning to End - A basic example of a portrait edit.

Commission - Snow Angel

Model: Genevieve House

Make Up: Liv Foley

This commission was for burlesque dancer Genevieve who's new act was based around white outfit and veil. At the time of the shoot it was still more of a concept than a set idea, but the term Snow Angel was use quite a lot.

This gave me an idea of shooting using mixed lights plus shutter drag for effect. What this means is that I used continuous lights (they don't flash) to light Gen on the sides to give motion blur and then two strobes (flashes) to stop motion. It gives an effect of movement but keeps her face sharp and clear.

The final touches where obviously done in Photoshop. Combining a couple different versions to increase the size of the veil. Colour and contrast work plus texture.

The end result is more etherial than I first envisioned, but happy none the less.