I met a local photographer in a Facebook group I am in. We have known how close we are to each other for a while now, and have finally gotten the courage to meet up with each other and shoot. We both needed pictures of ourselves. So, we decided to meet up and do a special session with the two of us. We were both nervous. We agreed to give each other the digital negatives (RAW file) and edit our own portraits.  Seeing another photographer's RAW file is like seeing someone naked. Exposing all are flaws without the protection of an edited image or highlighting our strengths. We saw everything the other shot. The good, the bad, and the ugly.  We are talking the out of focus, underexposed, crooked horizon, and bad composition.  It would be nerve racking to show that to clients, let alone your peers!

I love this photo she took of me. I cleaned it up to suite my preferences. I hope she found a few she liked as well.

Sometimes you do have to get help. We can't do everything ourselves. Sometimes in order to receive help we have to expose ourselves. Things we are just not happy with. We have to admit our short comings, and failures sometimes. Now, I will tell you that I am 99.9% sure that there isn't a single photographer that doesn't take a bad shot sometimes.  When we only see the best, we don't have an idea what the worst could be.

So, you see, this was challenging for us both. We both mentioned a few times of how nervous we were shooting for another photographer. I think we did very well. We never have met before in person, we showed our best and our worst. A new friendship has been made and a new perspective has been seen.

It's OK to expose our weaknesses sometimes, it's OK to be stripped down to our RAW forms in our personal and professional lives. It's how we improve, learn, and relate to others.