Glad to be a Photographer..It's the only way to press the pause button

I came across this image when I was checking to make sure my website was working well and it sort of grabbed me when I saw it. This is my daughter two whole years ago. Do you know she looks nothing like this now? She has developed her own funky style with funkified 80's colors and wacky combinations that resemble my own 80's stylin clothes. (Seriously, flashbacks daily. Leg warmers! Shoes untied! Skinny jeans and leggings!) But this was her then. Soft and sweet and wearing a dress which she won't wear for anything anymore. I am so thankful for this image that captured her so perfectly at that time. She's new now. She's evolving into her very own person with her own unique style and it isn't anything like it once was. And next year or the year after, there will be another evolution and a new part of her will emerge and this part will be gone. This is why I love what I do. It gives my clients THIS moment. This little piece of my day committed to celebrating her thens and nows and futures. I am so thankful I found this image and revisited it. I never had it printed, isn't that sad? It is on the way to the canvas people right now.

For some technical information:

This was shot with my old camera, the Cannon 40D and a Canon 85mm 1.8
Early evening, May 2008
Manual Exposure, 1/160th sec at ISO 100, f/3
Reflector camera right, shot in open shade
Back then before the stress of the tween years, my daughter had this nice peacefulness, a softness about her that I really wanted to capture. I asked her to get comfortable and just talked to her about the things she liked- back then it was probably Barbies and Ballet. I shot the image when I felt I saw that relaxed peacefulness at it's best.
The image was shot in RAW and converted to JPeg after using Nichole Van's LR preset, Basic Plus Vignette. (I re-edited this image yesterday so i remember exactly what I did!)
I ran Pioneer Woman's Sharpen This action and sharpened her eyes at 20% opacity, then Redleaf's Color Flow action with minor adjustments and Portraiture. It took around 2 minutes to edit this image.