When I take portraits, I show my clients the digital negatives as proofs. These are unedited images and sometimes, it can be a bit tricky to imagine what they will look like when they’re finished, custom-edited and print-ready. I hope the examples below help.

My job isn’t to get the perfect picture in-camera (not possible) but to make sure I capture all the ingredients for the perfect picture. Then I take that negative and put some artistry into it. It’s a bit like baking bread: if you don’t have yeast or salt, it’s not going to rise, no matter how much you knead it. And even when you do have all the ingredients, it takes time, experience, training, and some art to get it to all come together.

Print-ready, custom-edited image

Digital Negative: Like a pile of raw ingredients waiting to be put together