Hi Nichole, My daughter Callie was a "model" for your last photography workshop in SLC with Maddie Meuter. I would love to see the photos that were taken and get one of her. She was wearing the olive green dress. Could you email me and let me know if that's a possibility? Thanks so much! ccccpeterson@q.com

I don't think something ceases to be a photograph just because you added and enhanced it in Photoshop. We live in a digital age and Photoshop is definitely an artistic medium. Some use it to develop photos and others use it to create new works of art entirely! I love your photos and definitely think there is room for both types of images in photography. Not sure there is a line or that you need to be worried about crossing it! Photography and art are about seeing and creating! I am sure there will be those that think differently than me. Just my few thoughts!

Honestly Nichole, I solve this conundrum by just thinking of photography as an art form. I feel the style you have developed is art, pure and simple, no matter what the additions are. For my business I define it as creative photography, and I actually love the creative process and magic of layers and textures and frames. This is what I can provide that my clients can't - they can take the first picture themselves just fine, but they can't "create" the final one above like you can. I think they will desire and value the last one more because of that. This provides a value to your work that is tangible. We have to stay beyond the "Uncle Bobs" who are all over out there and taking very adequate and at times even inspired pictures. We must continually redefine the value within the experience a client has when they see themselves or their children in a beautiful way they hadn't realized existed. Running on a bit cause I too have been thinking a lot about what above and beyond value I provide for a client, and how I can keep that evolving as DSLRs flourish and technology evolves (I HATE that commercial where the Mom pulls a head off one picture and puts it in another picture in about five seconds!) I think it's imperative we keep pushing this envelope as long as we love the output.

I think as long as what you create draws the viewer in and makes them FEEL something...it doesn't matter what you call it. Photograph, painting, pencil drawing...it's all good. Plus, those who take the extra time to make an image different and special will not only set themselves apart from the masses, but they will also give the client something that really does look like art.

I love it!

Hi Nichole! Love the print & process all laid out. I'm not alone! I've thought about this from the beginning of my days as a photographer. I started out in landscape and have early on wondered if it was right (yes, right vs wrong) to manipulate colors, sunsets, skies, fore/back grounds. Reason being, how many vacation hotspot photos have we seen but to show up and think, "this is not what I saw in the magazine or the website." I think it's one thing to make a red sky turn into purple or blue; that truly would be photograhic ART, where there was a photographic original but was manipulated to become something of another nature. It's another thing to "enhance" a photo, such as sharpening, vignetting, selective exposure, etc, where the original truly in essence remains so, but..."better." We all know our cameras cannot replicate what our eyes see, so to include filters/ND filters/diffusers, I have reasoned, is ok because what we end up seeing on the photograph is what we saw in real life. I've come to the conclusion that people still do gravitate toward idealized vacation photos, let's say, or any other genre to be thought of, because everyone's minds have some general ideals about how some things SHOULD look like, and that's what people desire to see in photography. No on wants to see a dull, grey lake - they see a blue lake with reflected sun sparkles in their hearts and minds. No one wants to see a 13 year old with overly acneic skin; they want to see beautiful smooth skin (yet realistic and not plasticky!!). Toward that end, if I can have SOME latitude of freedom in enhancing my photographs, I do feel justified, while keeping it true to the essence of the original. Say, I may not remove all acneic skin from a subject like in the Portrait Professional ads. Perhaps more often then not, it just may be like your above case, where they may be just problems of exposure or composition, which really isn't manipulation at all. If I were to place a label for your above example as Photography or Photographic Art, I'd list it as both! The essence is preserved and is believably real, making ti a photograph. I have seen REAL light rays that look like that - and it seemed unbelievable in real life! It just wasn't like that at the time of your photograph, but I suppose it could've been! Keyword is "could have been." Texture and vignette added would make like more "artful." But you know, after all that, in the end, by definition, it is a photograph after all!

Hi Nichole, No stellar answers from me but the same train of thought, as is likely true for others. Is photography becoming redefined? Who knows where it is going? And why do we question it? Maybe it is for us who have been here since film that the changes are felt so accutely. Yes, your artwork is a photograph in the end, in my mind too. :) Kerri

So my question is how much time did this photography take you from start to finish. It's Beautiful!

Love your post. thank you for sharing the process . What you do is ART and wonderful