Photographing people with birds is a balance of timing and instinct. Moments like this—a little girl in the midground, framed by the gentle curve of a pigeon's wing in the foreground, with a backdrop of pigeons scattered across the ground—don't just happen. They’re captured. But the story behind this image? It’s as much about the editing as the photographing.

When you're in the moment, following a subject, you may find yourself shooting fast and often, like an action hero with a machine gun. Dozens of frames, each one holding its own potential. Some have better light, others have stronger shapes or a fleeting expression that makes them stand out. But which one is the shot? That’s where the art of editing kicks off my workflow.

Editing isn't glamorous, but it’s crucial. You sift through the garbage to find the buried treasure. In this case, it was all about composition. The wing draws the eye in. The child anchors the shot emotionally. The pigeons create motion and depth, balancing the frame. This one had it all. I had many others that were similar but this was the one with the better balance of all worlds: foreground, midground, and background elements working together in harmony.

And the post processing? I processed the RAW file to enhance the existing details, focusing on textures that added a painterly, film-like quality to the image. It was less about transformation and more about amplifying what was already there.

This is where I make the argument for careful editing especially when you have a single subject with multiple sequences of images. One could easily take several hundred images of a subject among a flock of pigeons. And sometimes it’s necessary just to get that one. But keep in mind too that it’s “that one” that you’re after. Oversharing very similar images will take away the impact of that one image that you should only be sharing with the public. Less is more. Seek out that one hero shot. Let there be no second or third-place finishers.