We often get asked what the hardest part about putting together each issue of Southern Flourish is. I’ll give you a few hints: it’s not meeting deadlines, coordinating shoots, coming up with ideas or working with new writers. The answer to the question has been (and I think might always be) selecting which photos go into the magazine.

It’s as simple as this: the photographers that we work with rock (David Despeaux, Jennifer Kesler, Allen Clark, Ben Williams, Austin Gros, Eric Chapman, Bridgett Ezzard — just to name a few of the fabulous). We always end up with tons of amazing material and selecting which photos fit in the article can be really tough. You want to make sure the photos you select work together as a group, gel with the rest of the magazine, and play in to the vibe of the season in which the magazine comes out. With a digital magazine there is always the temptation to load in photos and have a 40-page feature, but we’ve learned over the past two years that y’all really prefer a bit more curating with your Southern Flourish photos!

Elise and I faced the usual “agony” of pouring over the hundreds of delicious photos shot by Laura O Zumwalt for our cover story with Erin Austen Abbott. We ended up using about 20 photos and I guarantee we could have picked 20 different photos and you all would have been just as smitten with the feature. Laura’s photography is bananas amazing.

Here are some of my favorites that didn’t make it inside the magazine…