Celebrate Valentine's Day at the RED Gala

Join me for a fabulous evening with internationally acclaimed singers, the Napa Valley Youth Symphony, Sinfonia, and NOT-TO-MISS amazing auction items.



The RED Gala will be presented at the Lincoln Theater on February 13 to celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day.  For tickets and more information go to www.lincolntheater.org

I photographed the Youth Symphony musicians for the invitation and promotional materials. The fabulous Susie Schoonmaker designed all the graphics. 

Facebook Photo Special

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Retouching - what difference does it make?

Here is a quick primer on photo retouching.  Remember, doctoring of photographs has been around for years.  With photoshop, however, the possibilities are at a new level.


In general, digital image files that see the light of day are in one of three  states - unretouched (or straight out of the camera), retouched, or enhanced.


Unretouched images,  for those who shoot with jpegs, are images where the CAMERA makes the the decisions based on the settings made in the camera.


Retouched photographs include  some post-processing changes to the digital file made in an image editing program such as Photoshop.  (Yawn - don't fall asleep yet - there's more!)


For portraits, this includes removing or modifying blemishes, wrinkles, reflections, unwanted shadows, stray hairs, red-eye, etc.  It may include smoothing skin and some dodging/burning, whitening teeth, brightening eyes.  My barometer for retouching is to keep people looking natural AND like they've had a great night's sleep.


In this photograph, most of the retouching involved smoothing the shadows on the left side of this beautiful bride's face.   I also removed the color cast on her dress, brought out the detail of her veil, smoothed some of the shadows on her arm, and brightened the photo a touch.  

Enhanced photographs include some further interpretation of the photograph using an image editing program such as photoshop.   Here are a few examples of enhanced photographs.  Which interpretation works best for you?

Black and white conversation and partial color are additional possibilities.

At a most basic level, the original digital file is the foundation of the photograph.  The retouching and image enhancement are what make the photograph sing.

Baby Photos - Vote for your Favorite

Babies - who can resist them?  So adorable.  Just for the fun of it, VOTE for your favorite baby photo selected from a handful of this past year's sessions.  All the babies are supremely sweet and are attached to wonderful families. 

The baby photo with the most votes will win his or her parents an 11 x 14 museum canvas photograph from their photo session.

The photo number is below each photo.  Vote in the comments section at the bottom after baby #12.  One vote per person, please and include your name. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.   Thank you!

Thanks for your vote! ~ Suzanne

Happy New Year from Suzanne

Fabulous twins

I had so much fun photographing these twins and their family! Their parents didn't seem sleep deprived - how could that be?!

Photo session at Bronk Studio.

The twins are approximately six months. Their sister is three.

Waiting for Baby!

So adorable! Silvia likes to collect rubber duckies when she travels. She has lots!

Photo session at Bronk Studio.

Silvia is eight months pregnant.

Elaine + Morley + Juliana + Nathan + Alicia

Great family - so lovely to photograph. Thanks for starting the New Year off so well!