Cornish, Maine Maternity & Boudoir Photographer // Retouching Boudoir Photoshoots

Retouching is always a hot debate. I have a lot of people ask why I don’t just leave my models 100% natural. You probably have already guessed that these are not the people that I am photographing. Bottomline is unless you are on the other side of the lens, then you probably shouldn’t have any say until you can fully understand what its like to have someone take pictures of them with little to no clothes on.

Honestly, I see both sides of the argument, but I have a tendency to fall somewhere inbetween. I personally like to do light retouching on my clients. I always soften the skin, because there is not need to see inside every pore. There’s the obvious stuff like pimples or rashes or temporary things that probably won’t be there in a week. Those things go immediately. Then there’s things like the little bulge a too tight bra strap make. It’ll be the first thing anyone sees in that picture. Trust me. So it also magically goes away.

Then there’s the grey area of retouching. Stretch marks, scars, cellulite. The permanent things. These are the sort of thing that I ask my clients how they feel about them before we even start shooting. Some people think that these are the things that make them, well.. them. Obviously, for that clientele, those things will stay. But then there’s the most of us who want to be the better version of ourselves in these pictures. I’ll be the first to admit that I fall into this category and there’s nothing wrong with that! I have a scar on my face and I remove it in almost every picture that I take of myself. It doesn’t make that picture look less like me.

Then I’ve had clients that want me to make them look super skinny and “liquify” the crap out of them. (Liquify is the tool in Photoshop that allows photographers to make eyes and lips bigger or smaller, push in body parts to make them appear smaller or larger. You get the idea) Point is, I believe that a “responsible” use of this tool is ok, as long as I am not making my model appear to no longer look like themselves. Especially when photographing my pregnant mamas, I may use this tool in a way that they would never even notice. Pregnancy is tough and sometimes hiding a little bit of the extra pregnancy cellulite will make that woman’s pictures that much more amazing.

Bottomline is, if you love yourself as is, that’s amazing and that conversation will be had before the shot to leave your pictures true to life. But if you’re like the rest of the world and want something “fixed”, I’m more than happy to fix that too….. within reason.