dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

I think you should definitely UNFRIEND her. Remember, NO good deed goes unpunished.

Dennis

R.G. Loc: Scotland

To edit or not to edit? If circumstances have conspired to accentuate an old person's age, that may not be what they were hoping for, and vanity may have nothing to do with it.

You didn't do much editing so you can say "no" to the idea that your PP was exclusively responsible. But can you claim that the lighting you used was flattering to somebody with a lived-in face? Is she just being vain or is your photo actually not flattering for some reason? Only you know the truthful answer to those questions.

It sounds to me like your experience was a lesson in erring on the side of caution - and I don't mean just minimising the use of PP. I mean recognising beforehand what could have been a result that would be most likely to displease the recipient, then taking steps to minimise or reduce the chances of that particular outcome.

For example, could you have used better lighting? Could you have used less contrast in PP and still achieved a natural-looking outcome? Could you have used less sharpening and still produced an image that didn't look soft? Could you have lifted the Blacks and still produced an image that had sufficient contrast (i.e. had sufficient depth and sufficient difference between shadow and highlight)?

SteveFranz Loc: Durham, NC

Well, she IS 11 years older!

SWFeral Loc: SWNM

Oh wow. She's 92. That's old. Tell her she's earned her wrinkles and be done with her.

gwilliams6

You wont ever please everyone, so dont worry about it, move on, dont spend any more time on it.

Reminds me of a shoot years ago, my longtime beloved family physician in Philadelphia, I had done numerous medical newspaper and magazine stories on him, as he was a top doc ,who still did house calls.

Well his wife was an author and asked me to make the inside liner shot for her latest book on flowers. I agreed and took my pro Canon gear, a few professional strobes and modifiers and made a full color shot of her amongst the colorful flowers in her garden with beautiful back and sidelight and soft frontal light.

Well she hated it because she is fair-skinned and said the image showed her facial wrinkles, she was in her early fifties at the time. So I took the image into PS and one of my Portrait-Pro programs and got rid of most of the wrinkles and resubmitted it for her approval. She now didn't like it because she said she didn't look real or like herself anymore. LOL

I told her I was sorry, but I couldn't change the beautiful face nature had given her. So instead of a beautiful full color professional photo that fit her book, her publisher used a B&W straight flash head and shoulders shot they already had of her, for the inside back cover liner.

She never spoke to me ever again. Her husband found the whole vanity thing amusing, and has stayed my family physician and dear friend.

You cant win them all, and as others have said, no real friend would drop you over their own vanity. I have never had any other portrait subject react that way. Yes I have smoothed a few wrinkles on request for some, removed some skin blemishes and even thinned out a few faces on request, and they were happy with the results. I do try to please clients, especially paying clients. Good makeup artists are worth the price to hire for some shoots, and I do.

For one wedding couple, the daughter and son-in-law of my newspaper's financial manager, who was paying me very good money for the entire wedding day's shoot for her daughter , I went into every edited shot and whitened the loving couple's yellow teeth in every final shot I gave them, hundreds of shots. No one asked me to do that, no one ever said anything about it, but I was golden to that family. Well worth the extra effort for them and me.

Here one shot from that wedding, shot with my Nikon D1X, 70-200mm f2.8 Nikkor lens, 150mm, f5.3, 1/160 sec with off-camera strobes. Click on download to see better image quality.

Cheers and best to you.

(Download)

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

A good question for me. Part of my day job is portrait photogahy- in a way, your dilemma is the story of my life- kinda!

First of all, a quote from Rodney Dangerfield "Some of y'all have "NO REPECT". Don't go making disrespectful. NOT NICE!

Vanity and self-image are an integral part of successful portrat photograhy, thatis, from the customers' or subjects' point of view. Some folks, regardless of age, want to be somewhat glamorized or at least, photograher at best. of view. When you shoot a portrait on request, you are not necesserally a documentarian or journalist- you become a stylist.

There are many approaches- digital retouching, soft focus methods, soft or well-placed lighting, and cam based on facial analysis. Usually, it's a combination of two or more of the techniques.

Some possess more vanity than others. A simple discussion when planning a shoot helps just as the person the subject prefers a realistic character study or a softer less detailed version of themselves.

Self-image is tough stuff. Some folks envision themselves as they were when they were younger. Some are happy in their own skin while others want some softening and some expect "plastic surgery".

This is my "philosophy" and the only blurb I have on my portrat price list and promotional material:
" I photograph you were as you were, as you are, and as you would like to be remembered"

Besides technical and artistic skills, compassion, patience, and understanding are the most important traits of a good portrat photographer.

No big deal- do a re-shoot- no ego, disappointment, or conflict! Just stand behind your work and please your client.

95 years old- this will likely be her last portrait- make it a good one!

Also- suggests a 3/4 length pose. Use props, have her doing somethg, reading, knitting, writing, somethg. Tell a story. Shoot lots- the law of averages my be on your side.

Get some Portrt-Pro software. It can help retouch portraits with preset levels of softness.

gwilliams6

revhen Loc: By the beautiful Hudson

92 IS old! But my wife says, "I don't blame her."

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

I thought I was perusing UHH, not Dear Abby. Tell her that you didn't make her old it's the pills she takes that are to blame!

Bill_de Loc: US

There should be a way to soften the image in PhotoShop or a similar program.

If that doesn't work ... Ai to the rescue.

But keep in mind, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

---

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

For those who seem to put all the blame on the vanity of the subject, we haven't seen the photo, and don't know if the lighting or posing may have been less than ideal for an elderly person. For me, the big advantage of doing portraits digitally, which I did professionally, is to be able to review the photos for the subjects during the shoot, so if there is something they don't like you can try something different. I assume the OP didn't do that. This 92 year old may indeed have been impossible to please due to not liking her appearance, but knowing that at the time of the shoot would have gone a long way to try to please her. Offering to try to retouch them might have helped also. If the OP is not experienced in facial retouching (it's an art in itself), I'm sure people here would have been able to do it.

dbrugger25 Loc: Raleigh, NC

5

You could offer to take another photo with the lighting arranged to minimize the "wrinkle shadows". Other that that, or some Photoshop work, there isn't much that you can do.

dbfalconer Loc: Salida CO

I’m surprised the 92-year-old did not get to provide input as to which photo was chosen to display. Including her in the process could have avoided all of this. I would be unhappy to have this happen to me—at any age.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

That is her battle with aging and vanity. If she wants to look younger suggest botox and call you when ironing is complete.

RoswellAlien

As my 95 yo mother said, they’re not age spots, they’re wisdom warts.