Thank you for all those years of public service and risk-taking on behalf of all of us.
I'm curious about the lighting on these. Presumably you had one flash on each side. On the medals though I'm seeing very high contrast, with a number of very black-looking areas on downward inclined right-hand facing surfaces (and some rather white areas on some left-facing inclines) which look like the result of much stronger illumination from the top left. Perhaps this is deliberate artistic intent, in which case please ignore what follows.
I'm wondering if it is to do with what you did in Photoshop. Did you by chance bring the Blacks and/or Shadows down and/or the Contrast up in order to make the background go fully black? Perhaps this had a side-effect on the medals, turning up the contrast of the milder difference in left/right illumination produced by the flashes at capture time?
