By Scott Shephard

We are doing deep cleaning and organizing because we have sold our house and are moving a few miles north. In the process of boxing things in my office closet, I came across a slip case of DVDs full of photos from my "early days." In fact, I think this photo of Jennifer is from one of my first ever senior sessions.

I was shooting with a 4.4 megapixel Canon 1D - a DSLR that was considered state of the art 12 years ago. Jennifer was standing in my wife's flower garden and I was using an off-camera Canon flash and a shoot-through umbrella to provide fill light. I don't often say this, but I think its a pretty good picture. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a subject like Jennifer.

Frankly, what inspired me to post this black and white and softened photo was a fascinating article I read yesterday about retouching done to a photo of movie star Joan Crawford.

The photo was taken in the 1930s and the softening that you see in the photo on the right was done back then, not in the present with the software tools I have. The photographer was George Hurrell and you can have an 11x14 print of the final photo for $1200.

The photo of Jennifer is not for sale. :-)

Canon 1D