Revisiting portrait images

I was scrolling through older folders recently and stopped on this raw file. A portrait taken in Rome. I have looked at it dozens of times over the years but never actually sat down to edit it. I am almost glad I waited.

There is something interesting about looking at a past version of your work through the eyes of who you are today. If I had edited this the day I took it, it would look completely different. Back then I might have been chasing a different aesthetic, or perhaps I didn’t yet have the patience to let the shadows sit where they needed to.

Editing is not just about moving sliders. It is a reflection of how taste matures. Over the years I have found myself leaning further into the quietness of an image. Less intervention. More honesty. You don’t always need to shout to hold someone’s attention. In this edit I wanted to focus on stillness — the grain, the soft fall-off of light, the directness of the gaze. Nothing added that wasn’t already there.

The new direction I am moving in is simpler and more honest than what came before. Less chasing. Less processing. More trust in what the camera recorded and what the subject gave. The archive is full of images that were waiting for this — shots taken before I had the confidence to leave them alone.

It makes me realise how much we grow as photographers without noticing it. Every book, every film, every person you sit across from is quietly refining your eye. Revisiting this image felt like a collaboration between the version of me who saw the moment in Rome and the version of me who finally knew how to finish it. The archive is a living thing. Some photographs just need to wait for you to grow into the person capable of editing them.

This is the work I do — character-led, black and white, built on restraint and honest process. Based in Sandwich, Kent, I take portrait commissions across the UK, London, and internationally. If the work resonates — get in touch.

Black and white fine art portrait of a young woman taken in Rome revisited and edited years later by portrait photographer Tom Parsons, Sandwich Kent

Visceral, character-led portraits from honest, quiet human moments. Classical legacy portraiture for private commissions. International, UK, London, based in Sandwich, Kent.