A Soldier's Goodbye

     "Back home agaaaaainnnn....In Indiaaaannaaaaa!"  My wife and I traveled home this past weekend 1. for Memorial Day Weekend and 2. for my youngest brother Danny's graduation.  He is the youngest of the four of us brothers and the last to leave my parents house.  In one week he will be the third of us to join the armed services, but the only one of us to join the Army since my grandfather.  It's nice to see my parents and always quite an event for all four of us brothers to be together, in the same house.  Brandy and I also brought both our puppies with us to bring the grand total number of dogs in my parents house to six (its a three bedroom ranch style house at that).  One of the things we promised was to do a photoshoot for Danny and his wonderful girlfriend Stephanie (insert Short Circuit Johny #5 voice here).  She has just finished her basic training in the Army, so they will have many rough roads ahead of them in regards to seperate deployments and getting stationed in different places.  I know they care about each other a lot!  Brandy and I were both in the Navy at the same came can deffinitely empathize with their situation, and were more than happy to shoot these photos for them. 
     Probably one of the prettiest parts of downtown Indianapolis is the Canal that runs through the city.  This is where we decided to shoot first.  The water is a nice blueish green color and there's many fountains and bridges that run over it in different areas.  Like usual, getting them to loosen up took a second but after a while I could see them start to enjoy posing together and a lot of the shots that they liked the most were the ones where they weren't even aware that I was taking pictures.  My other brother Bobby and his girlfriend Danica were also with us (he's the only one of us who DID NOT join an armed service) and we decided to let them get in front of the lens as well for a few shots.  They were a lot more comfortable in front of the camera than I thought they were.  While I was shooting them I could turn around and see Danny and Stephanie sitting together or hugging or something like that, so I would snap a few of them and then go back to Bobby and Danica.

     After we shot to our hearts content there we walked a little ways down the canal to the only standing Medal of Honor Memorial in the world.  I was honored to be a part of it's unveiling ceremony back in 2002 and it is quite the sight to see if you ever are in the midwest.  There I wanted to capture Danny and Stephanie in front of the Iraq/Afghanistan Campaign section of the wall and catch a glimpse of their reflection in the glass, representing them being together now but seeing them as soon to be part of that particular campaign and I was pleased with how the editing of the picture came out and I hope that message came across the way I wanted. (Brandy was really upset that we forgot to get a picture of AOC John Finn's name on the wall, he was the oldest living recipient that died recently).

     One of the techniques I began to play with on this shoot was the "Liquify" filter.  This is a girls best friend!  If you know what you're doing and use it correctly you can use this tool to nip, tuck, lift, enlarge, pucker whatever it is you want to.  Now some may say this kind of editing is lying or cheating, but I'm not out to "create" fake photos by using this tool nor do I ever want to change the appearance of somebody enough to offend them by making them feel they aren't pretty enough the way the are in the photo, but lets be honest, what woman out there wouldn't mind a minor adjustment considering that perspective and angle of the shot can do some funky things not to mention your outfit can cause odd things to happen if it's strapless or things like that, so unless they want you to transform them into a size 2 model and let you do everything you can to change their appearance, stick to minor adjustments and ALWAYS make it look natural.  Nobody should be able to tell you've edited anything without seeing the original.  If the camera adds 10 pounds... I just take it back in editing :-D

We had such a blast doing this shoot for my brothers... hope to do it again soon!