Going Back Through Old Shoots and Overlooked Images
greggcestaro.com My process of editing is to first quickly go through the sometimes thousands of photos as soon as I get home while the notion of things I liked when shooting are still fresh in my mind. I sit back in a darkened room with some Skrillex and a frosty beverage and hit the buttons as the images fly by on the big screen. For me, its a lot like looking through a magazine… if I stop on an image because it interests me it gets a star while the rest the images are not even really looked at a second time. The stars are filtered out and set aside and looked at in detail, post-processed with best results in mind and those 
images are sent off as finished product. Occasionally, when I am bored, I revisit an recent shoot and look at the ones that didn’t make it the first round. Sometimes, with a new eye, judicial cropping or flipping or rotating the image it changes for the better. Other times additional design elements can round out the picture altogether. These two are images that recently got a second look. The resort wear shot was originally a vertical oriented 3/4 by the pool. What I liked was Brits profile, jewelry, glasses, and hair but the rest of the shot was just OK. A 90 degree left rotation and tight cropping in on the very essential elements with high key bumps change the image completely into an Ad worthy shot. A magazine styled design element helps place it in the genre.
The lingerie shot was good on its own. It was shot on the fly with my Canon G11 point and shoot while my other bigger camera was doing vids. I feel that the French design script elements, scrolling, and L’Ermitage tag really take the image up a notch. Canvasing and worn edges creates a very vintage feel. Sometimes there is a second chance to make a good impression and it is good to go back and revisit earlier images. I think I would like to go back and check stuff from way way back but those are all archived in huge binders of sharpie inscribed CD’s, so maybe, if I got a lot of time on my hands!
