This was a Tulip from our yard that I thought got pretty interesting last night and I made a couple photos of it using a flashlight to light it inside our living room. Photographs by Richard Sayer
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I began working on this piece really back in January when I took a self portrait. I hadn't done much with it until last week when it was raining. I began to combine things and it remained pretty simple. Tonight I decided to try to manipulate those things in a different manner and came up with this. Its funny how working through some problems in making piece takes on a life of its own - and that you find reflections inside your thoughts that resemble those things that you make. By Richard Sayer
I took this portrait of my grandmother Alethea Williams, my mom's mom in December 2005( didn't realize it was that long ago!) in her living room on Gleaner Chapel Road in Scituate, Rhode Island. She agreed to pose for a picture for me and I had a film camera with old color film in it. I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I took a few shots and this one was my favorite because she seemed the least posed. On leaving the house I took the picture below of Gramma watching me leave. Gramma died this morning just after midnight. She lived to be 94. Photographs by Richard Sayer
Click on the picture above and you'll be re-directed to a slideshow of images of Abby Phillips, the 2010 Miss Meadville Area Outstanding Teen. She is preparing for the state pageant and in the slideshow you get to hear a little of her beautiful voice as she sings and tells a little bit about herself and her platform. We photographed Abby before, during after the pageant this year and we combined several of the photographs together with some of her own personal photos into a slideshow. Also on the page is a link to se Miss Meadville Area Meredith Semon's slideshow. Both girls will be representing the area in state pageants. Photographs by SayerMotter Photography.
My grandmother, Alethea Williams, breaks down while listening to a tape recording of her husband's funeral ceremony. Her husband, Bud, died nearly a year earlier and she often replays the tape of the service. Her great grandson Dan's remarks are what touch her off most often . "I miss him so," she said.
I took this picture of my grandmother a few years ago. She was lonely, but didn't want to move out of her home. Today I received word that she might not be with us much longer as she has stopped eating or drinking. She is 94. I have never known life without a grand-parent. I had 4 when I was born and grew into adulthood. I remember clearly 5 great-grandparents. Nearly all lived into their 90's. This is one of two favorite photographs I have of my grandmother. She was a pretty guarded person who only revealed what she wanted to reveal to others. This moment she didn't know I was going to take a picture and it was pretty real emotion. Real sadness. She loved her husband very much and missed him deeply every single day of the rest of her life. The other picture, which I couldn't find off hand was a picture I took about two( turns out it was 4) years ago of my grandmother standing on her deck watching me leave. She always liked to stand and wave as the cars went down the driveway. We would then toot the horn as we drove away. I've been thinking a lot about her tonight. Photograph by Richard Sayer This is lil' bro. We got him when he was nearly 2 from the Humane Society. Sam picked him out. I probably would've over-looked him because he wasn't a real Beagle with three colors in his fur. I would've been an idiot. This guy is funny. We bust his chops once in awhile because his name when we picked him up was Mittens. We changed it because he was a little dog that we got to be buddies with our big dog named Java! He's going to be 11 this year and he's in pretty good shape. We have to watch his weight for him, which doesn't please him, but we hope its helping keep him healthy. He's pretty content and comfortable just being outside and being himself. He also loves sniffin'.Photograph by Richard Sayer
Making art and making documentary photographs are two different things, even though much of how we go about both overlap. I love photography and using what I know about composition and design in order to better communicate. Part of this picture appeared in the paper today. I say part because the photograph was cropped in the designing of the page into a square. The angle of this photograph is what makes this photograph interesting - it uses a wide angle from down low that distorts the church. Its one of those odd areas of documentary work that gets argued quite a bit - does the lens change the meaning of the truth? I recently read that using the tools that we have to make our work is akin to filtering information through our own beliefs, we can't completely exclude the affects of these outside factors in the reading of the photograph, but they become part of the artist or photographers vocabulary. As a photographer I wanted to use the leading lines of the window to the right and the crane to the left to lead the eye upward from the base or bottom of the picture. These lines were cropped out in the paper and this diminished the eye movement from the base upward. This may seem minor in scope, but its really not. Communicating this solid base allows us to better understand what we're looking at, even if on a subconscious level. We now can buy into the distortion having a firm ground or base. It seems funny writing about this because no one looking at the picture in the paper came even close to thinking about these matters, they simply liked, disliked or were indifferent to the picture. The same set of reactions are likely even if the image would have been presented un-cropped. As artists and photographers though we must think about these things because it is the way we communicate what we do the best we can. So when its not presented as we would present it, it diminishes our ability to communicate our story. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
I've been discussing teaching a lot lately. I have many short-coming when it comes to teaching. I know this. I stumble with words, I get going on tangents and I sometimes forget what I'm trying to say. I understand that my being a teacher to others is sometimes a very comical thing. But....one thing I do think I'm good at is seeing potential in my students and trying to help them develop that. Its not always easy to find that potential and sometimes I feel like a failure with certain students, but others I see it right away and do what I can to really push it in them to explore their ideas. This semester I met Jack Conant. I don't think I did much here, but when Jack told me his ideas I simply just said go for it and offered my advice the best I could. Jack is an artist. He's a math major, but he is an artist. The constraints of a semester are his only obstacle, his ideas are bigger than a time frame. I took this picture of Jack in front of his first project in my class. The piece was then accepted into the juried art show and received a purchase award. Meaning he sold his first photography project. Jack is entertaining and a very solid thinker in artistic endeavors. I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes in the future and hope I don't get in his way with my suggestions and feedback. Photograph by Richard Sayer
The Erie Olive Garden did their part to participate in Earth Day 2010. Approximately 20 Olive Garden employees volunteered their time to clean up Zuck Park in Erie, Pennsylvania. Here are some highlights from the morning. HAPPY EARTH DAY EVERYONE! Photos By: Harmony Motter
I usually don't like photographs of birds. I don't know why, I just never have. But, I do like this one, because I took it! I hung out with these birds for over a half an hour on Monday afternoon. I was at Pymatuning State Park Spillway in Linesville, Pennsylvania. I stumbled upon a married couple feeding the fish and birds bread. They had loaves and loaves of it. After awhile I think that the woman got tired of tossing it out in little bits and pieces and just said "oh well," and placed a half of loaf of bread out on the ground. I thought to myself, "oh, this is going to be good!" I sat patiently and waited to see what the seagulls were going to do with it. I love the little seagull guy in the back...he was a greedy little guy..he grabbed a whole piece of bread and took off! If I were him, I would have done the same thing.
Photo By: Harmony Motter |