black white photo of boston child

A Before and After Photography Tutorial

Spend a few minutes below for a before and after photography tutorial that show the transformation of a ordinary photograph into something completely different.

From This to That: The transformation of a photograph a before and after photography tutorial

 

One of my goals for the year is to push myself more creatively.  It is easy to get into a rut, do what is familiar and not experiment.  For the past month, I’ve been playing with harsher light.  I don’t think the light in this photo would qualify as extremely harsh but it is directional and not a type of light I typically use when taking photographs for my 365 project.

Since the time change, we have been getting some really strong afternoon light that I don’t remember seeing before. When I walked by the playroom one evening, I was struck at how beautiful the light was streaming in.  Usually, I’d try to take a photo with the sun behind the subject but I opted to try something different.  My son was playing legos and I asked if I could take his picture.  Of course he said no but after some bribing – I mean convincing – he relented and gave me about three minutes.

The first photo was from my vantage point with the camera. You can see where the evening light was hitting the wall of bricks.  Ezra wasn’t tall enough to stand in the light so he stood on a small chair a few inches away from the wall.

This is the view looking into the playroom. You can see the light coming in from those two windows.  The sun was setting behind the houses across the street.Here is the unedited photo.  Nothing really speculator here.  But I had a vision of what the image might look like with some work.  I normally don’t do this much editing on photographs but I wanted to experiment.  before and after photography tutorialI knew I wanted the photograph to be in black and white and was curious if I could “remove” the bricks by darkening the background. After converting the image and making a curves adjustment I just needed to clone out a handful of lines from the mortar. I also cropped the image, changed the orientation, and extended the background a little bit.
I love how the final image highlights his freckles, which my husband and I seem to think appeared overnight.before and after photography tutorialIn case you are thinking, “hey, my kid would never let me take his photo.” Here is the first photo I took in the series and the rest of them are pretty similar. headshot of boy boston

Beth Ann is a portrait photographer based in Belmont MA just outside of Boston. She is currently booking Boston MA NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHY, Boston MA FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY and Boston MA BABY PHOTOGRAPHY SESSIONS in the Boston, MA area. Be sure to contact her to photograph your newborn, baby, family or wedding.

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