To dive into that a little further- There are lots of trends as far as image editing goes, and most of those trends tend to manipulate the true colors of life into something different. The most popular styles currently are more rustic boho that enhances yellows and browns, dark or moody which takes to deeper contrast and shadows, or even light and airy which tends to be more of an overexposed style with varying desaturated in certain color tones. Each style is photographer specific, and some photographers have certain presets they use to achieve these looks (also known as "filters") but I feel this was made popular by phone apps like Instagram. There's nothing wrong with finding your style as art is subjective, there are lots of clients that favor a certain style, and some base that on their home decor or personal aesthetic. 

For me personally, I was raised old school in the dark room on black and white film. So I was taught to shoot and edit traditionally from the beginning. I grew up just outside of D.C. surrounded by many cultures throughout my life, including people of color within my own family. My first film teacher in High School was actually a light skinned black man, and my best friend and photo-buddy at the time was hispanic and black mixed. From this very beginning point of learning to use a camera and metering for proper exposure I was very aware of varying skin tones and how to expose my film specifically for every tone. With black and white film, if you didn't expose someone properly with very light or dark skin, you'd likely lose any detail within their faces making for an unusable image. The same went for printing, you had to make sure your highlights and shadows still had detail, all while displaying great contrast in a compelling image. I think learning with film certainly made me a much more intentional photographer. When you only had 12 exposures on your medium format camera you had to get it right, there was no unlimited "spray and pray" like there is with digital photography now. When I got to college this got even harder as I learned color film and printing. Not only did we have to properly expose color film, but when we printed our images HAD to be perfect color balanced. Meaning, true white needed to be white, and black needed to be black. You would achieve that printing color by dialing in different degrees of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow on test strips over and over again until your images were completely true to life color. When I finally learned digital photography in my senior year of college as the DSLR was introduced that was yet again the case. We learned to perfectly color balance our images on the screen and in print, and that was the only way accepted. I'll say too, at the time the only excuse for anything different was a style that Nan Goldin used with her film and printing, but that was art, she was an artist so that was her style. And we weren't quite artists, we were students. But essentially, this is where my style was made. This is where I learned my craft and while I may not be "trendy" in a modern sense, I'm actually really proud to be more traditional and intentional in the way I shoot and edit for my clients. I think representation is important now than I think it's ever been in our society, for great reason. I want my clients of all backgrounds, of all cultures and of all colors to be comfortable and look themselves. I want them to feel represented. And for me, this means editing my images artful, but still true to life. The way the sun kisses your skin to warm it during golden hour, that's important to me. The way your hair falls and the shades of color throughout, that's important to me. Being able to capture your skin tone next to someone who might be lighter or darker than you, that's important to me! And that representation is why people like the Imhoede Family, the Moore Family, the McGuire Family and soooo many others choose me to capture their families.