On Eyes

You should know, this photo is straight out of the camera, cropped for the post, no more, no less, just my boy. In fact, the vast majority of my images are largely untouched. A few minor edits, a play with the vignetting, a fiddle with the contrast, but nothing major. I don't have anything against the editing process, in fact, it fascinates me to experiment and occasionally I do, and I love looking at other photog's work and ideas, but one thing I will not touch is the eye color. It's popular in digital photography these days to enhance the eyes. Heck, most of us ladies, and Adam Lambert, spend good money here and there thinking about how to elongate the lashes, dampen the wrinkles, pop the color. On your screen, I could make my little L's eyes a gorgeous shade of aquamarine or cerulean, literally transforming into 3D twinkling spheres, jumping out at you, beyond his baby perfect skin and button nose, putting the rest of his cuteness to shame. You might oooh and aahh, complementing my boy, my set-up of the shot, the works, but on my screen, in my frame, in my home, with the little munchkin border-line-cruising at your feet, you would see that his eyes are not aquamarine nor cerulean. They are not periwinkle or manatee. (That last one I looked up.) They are just Landon. Sometimes the sun will bounce off his kiddie table, blue from the skylights into his soul, and they'll look extra magical. I'll grab my Canon and shoot a pic, the settings all askew, while making pepperoni flatbread pizzas on the stove for Sammy D with the other hand, not wanting to get grease on my baby and lord knows I don't wanna miss a thing. Minutes, hours or days later I'll save it, because well, how can I delete? But it will always look like him and for that, no matter the ooh's and aah's, I will love the picture for all time.

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