I was taught by my mother early on… the true measure of a man is how he takes care of his family. I never understood the significance of the statement until the day I got married. Today, I thank God for giving me a deeper understanding, a loving family, and good health. Without love, health, and understanding, one is truly poor.

(Photo credit: Virginia Wedding Photographer, Ayesha Ahmed)

Sameer talked to me about getting pictures of himself that he can use professionally and share with family. Not only is he an old friend, but also a fellow photographer – he has second shot for Mahroo and I a few times this past year. He is a Raleigh based photographer specializing in entertainment photography and is the owner of Fisdj.Foto.

And it’s no secret he’s a heart-throb (I don’t have ugly friends). And yes ladies, he’s single =)

Sameer wanted something fresh, so we decided to go out to downtown Raleigh and see what I could come up with. I wanted to do some dramatic studio portraiture as well and fit a short session in after the downtown trip.

This is a picture from Sobia and Fahad’s wedding. Close up pictures usually require some skin softening, hair strand removal, and blemish fixes along with creative color and contrast augmentation.

A well exposed and composed image can work perfectly straight out of camera. If you know what you’re doing and handle capturing part well, then processing isn’t always about fixing things. The image here is from Kiswa and Sameer’s wedding and as you can see, there really wasn’t any work done on exposure. The image is treated with a split toning recipe along with some work on the tonal curve.

Sometimes I’m able to find exactly the type of background and setting I was looking for, but things like signs and other obstructions get in the way. Also, some days are extremely overcast with very flat light. A color boost recipe with some cloning work and this photo of Muna is complete.

On days I have beautiful light and gorgeous skies, I like to really pull in the blues. Selective burning and dodging are old darkroom tricks that still work wonderfully in the digital age. Mixed exposures allow for a more dynamic looking picture as seen in this shot of Sarah and Azab.

Black and white conversions can be some of the most complicated processes. I really liked this picture of Lucia and wanted to make a duotone piece out of it. Shown first and second are the straight-out-of-camera image and basic software black-and-white rendering. After some cloning, brush work (burning in shadows / dodging highlights), and hint of color toning, we have a more dynamic duotone composition.