Recently I made the (possibly ill-conceived) decision to revisit my piece Virtueand completely rework this image I had taken over two years ago. This was kind of a big deal for me. When I first ventured into the realms of photoshop and image editing, I made a rule for myself that I would never go back and re-edit an old image for one reason: growth.

I first got Photoshop as a gift from my cousin years and years ago. I immediately made a concerted effort to watch every single tutorial and read every forum relating to Photoshop the internet had to offer.

Spoiler alert: there's a lot.

My efforts were rewarded, however, as I began to see improvement, and found myself enjoying photography more and more as time went on. I also found it incredibly tempting to go back and re-edit photos I had taken months and even years previous. Photography has been a hobby of mine since my family and I moved to India while I was in high school, and I had a lot of really interesting photos that I was sorely tempted to go back and "fix" with my improving talent.

I will readily admit that am a perfectionist, to a fault, and I realized that allowing myself to rework old photos could quickly lead me into a black hole of "edit, learn something new, rework, and repeat". So I forced myself to recognize that improvement and growth comes from looking forward and trying new things, and definitely not from trying the same thing over and over again. Of course, I'm saying this about a month after I published three reworks of Integrity... But, unlike with Virtue, though, which I was absolutely in LOVE with and was able to proudly display for all the internet to see, as soon as I finished Integrity I decided I didn't like it and immediately started over.

I had never finished an image, been happy with it, and then walked away from it for years at a time before coming back to it, as was the case with Virtue.

Until this past December.

Here is the piece after completion in November of 2013:

Now here is the same photo reworked in December of 2015:

So why did I decide to go back to this piece nearly two years later?

The same reason I decided NOT to go back and edit old photos: Growth.

(**If you're curious about the meaning and symbolism behind this piece, you can read about it here, in my first blog post about Virtue. Disclaimer: it may or may not contain cringe worthy writing from my younger blogging self. Why oh why did I never go back and edit my posts before publishing?**) 

Virtue is part of an eight part series which I am currently working on. Yes, it's taken over two years, and I'm not even half way through. Let's not get into that. I legitimately made finishing this series one of my New Year's resolutions.

I digress.

Considering the amount of growth I'm happy to have experienced in the world of photography, I felt like there were stark differences in the mood, skill, and technique in my more recent photos in the series and I wanted my images to feel like they all belonged together (you can see the other two pieces here and here). In essence, I wanted this series to look like I wasn't such a tremendous slacker and hadn't taken the photos years apart.

So what have I learned from this? A few things:

1) Sometimes it's alright to live life on the edge and break your own rules.

2) However I still wouldn't make it a regular exercise to re-edit old photos. There were many times when I wanted to give up on this one and just let it take its subpar place in the series. To say the least, it was a very fierce battle between my perfectionism and my desire to work on other (newer and therefore more fun) pieces. Not incredibly enjoyable, I will confess.

3) Thank heavens someone invented the raw file format. 

AND

4) Perseverance is important if you want to finish a piece that's taken over two years to complete.

Here's a gif on how the magic happened (the second time around):

We also made a jaunt into the New York Public Library, but the main hall was closed for renovation, so we didn't get to see much other than this hallway (admittedly a beautiful hallway) and a few side rooms. Just another excuse to go back, I guess!

The Flat Iron Building at Sunset:

We also went to the Met, where Anna and I went to the Jacqueline de Ribes exhibit. I think this may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip. Look at these costumes! My mind was going crazy imaging all the cool photos I could have taken with these beautiful gowns!

The Met also had this really cool nativity tree, which played Christmas carols and light up various parts of the scene as it played. The angels on the tree actually reminded me of my tree topper growing up, which was cool.

After our marathon throughout Manhattan, we decided to call it a day and grabbed some bagels on the way home. I'm a little sad that my first "New York bagel" experience was not as magical as I thought it would be, mostly due to the lackluster cream cheese the shop had. I generally view my bagel as a vehicle for the massive amounts of cream cheese I slather on, so the fact that this delicious condiment didn't walk up was a little disappointing. 

Anyway, enough with my bagel tangent. Until next time!

When we got to the parade, we couldn't figure out how to get to the side of the street where we were allowed to stay and watch, so we wandered around for a good twenty minutes before we decided to ask one of the police officers which way we needed to go. Surprisingly, he pulled open one of the barricades and let us walk through an area where my roommates and I were literally the only people without a costume or some sort of identification badge. I'm pretty sure we weren't technically supposed to be there, but we just kept saying to ourselves "act cool. Act normal. But take ALL the pictures!" as we walked past all the huge blimps and costumed people.

Definitely a once in a life time experience!

Toothless is, and always be, my favorite. I just love him so much!

After the parade we walked up to Times Square and ate at Brooklyn Diner. I got a pastrami reuben, because as they say "When in New York", and it was heavenly.

Now that I know it's only three hours away, I think I will be visiting much more in the future.

Remember that post I wrote about Integrity a while back? And remember how I wrote another post about a different version of Integrity a few weeks later?

Well let's hope the old adage "third time's the charm" holds true, because I'm about to hit you with another rework of Integrity. This time,  though, I completely scrapped the original image and started over again with a different photograph from that day. 

Now this isn't to say that I was lying in my last post when I said my second version was "SO MUCH better" and "I loved it", because it really was SO MUCH better and I really did love it more than the first. Seriously, I still cringe when I see the green fog from my first edit. You probably couldn't find a grilled cheese sandwich that was cheesier than this:

Uh... that failed attempt at a light ray coming down. The fact that the fog isn't even green in the area surrounding here. It was just.... bad.

So I asked for second opinions and the photo evolved into the latest version of Integrity, seen here:

And being 100% honest, I really did love it at first! But as time went on I realized it just didn't fit me. It didn't fit the story and it didn't fit my style. I strive for elegance and an air of authenticity in my photos and I didn't feel like this image was indicative of that. Was it really cool? Yes. Was it all kinds of fun colors and cool smoke? Yes. But of all the traits I claim to have, flashy is (I hope), not one of them. I love to work in the subtleties and so I attempted to take a more subtle approach this time around.

As I was reworking attempt #2, though, I was having a hard time visualizing what exactly I wanted to change. All I could see was what I DIDN'T want the picture to look like, blatantly staring me right in the face. It's like when people take a bright light and shine it right in your eye. You can't see anything but that light. You have a hard time believing there is anything else out there except that light. I was stuck, staring at this bright.... purple.... flashy.... light.

So I went back to square one and began looking for another shot from that day that I could use. Amidst the thirty or so photos I had taken, I found this one:

And this one:

Well photoshop exists for a reason.... so I combined them. And then added a lot of fog. And rather than listing ALL the things I changed.... I think I'll just show you. Because... you know... "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I stand by that statement. Without further ado, attempt #3:

3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; 4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. 5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. Job 27: 3-6

In my original post about six months ago, I explained all the symbolism behind this image. Since I'm nice and don't want to have to make you go track the original post down in the archives, I thought I'd give another explanation (largely copied and pasted from the original post):

Since the color for Integrity is purple, I made the obvious choice of dressing Kacey in purple. The ornament in her hair, a kanzashi, and the cherry blossom flowers wrapped around her crook are all nods to her Japanese heritage.

The image is representing her staying true to her beliefs and her principles and following the words of our Heavenly Father no matter what may cross her path. To me, this is the definition of integrity.

The shepherd's crook, long recognized as a symbol of our Savior, represents Christ as the Shepherd. He guides us to safety and eternal life through his example. I wanted to have Kacey holding onto this staff as she walked down the path, just as we must hold to the words of our Savior throughout our lives, during easy and difficult times alike.

The light represents her goodness and the "light" of Christ we can bring into the sometimes dark and dreary world around us.

Finally, as you may have guessed, the forest in winter and the fog creeping in represents not only the evils of the world, but more importantly, the difficult times in our lives. It's so easy to think that it's "evilness" that pulls us away from our Heavenly Father. But like a gentle fog rolling in, it's the daily struggles and the sorrows that occur in our lives which obscure our path back to him.

So hopefully this is the final version I am sticking with. I've been staring at this photo for the past two weeks, making tiny adjustments here, and tiny adjustments there. When I finally opened it up last night, and again this morning, and couldn't think of anything I wanted to change, I decided it was time to share.

Hopefully this is the last time I will be posting about Integrity!