For your consideration.....

I present to you 2 different versions of the same photo of my beautiful wife. One has very basic exposure and color corrections and nothing else done to it, the other has more contrast and some toning to it but still does not deviate to far from the original. I like them both but definitely am leaning more towards the natural one. What do you guys think? Any opinions and input are welcome. If you follow the blog you may remember that in my last post i vowed to do a lot less post processing on my images. There actually is a reason for this shift, in seeing the work of many different photographers i began to notice one common thread in all their photos. All of them were using color toning or cross processing effects on their photos, many photographers in their quest to become more artsy have jumped on the band wagon and started using color filters or actions on their photos. Like i said before i am very guilty of this myself and by no means am i saying that i am better or above any one else on this matter. I think that some photographers do it extremely well and have definitely redefined what a photograph can be, for me on the other hand i started to feel like much of my work was just over processed and began to look the same or just downright wacky. I have begun to study the work of the masters again, gone back to the basics to see what makes a photograph great to see why they stand out and what makes me say "that is so cool". Many of the great photographs that i have been going through all have beautiful light and great compositions.........and minimal touch ups. This is my continued goal to bring myself back to basics and reinforce the foundation of my craft, heck i even dug up the old film bodies and loaded a roll in there.............that felt good.