Ryan Smith and I went to Conneaut Lake Park today to do a story on the new rides guys that are at the park--story should be in tomorrow's trib. While there I noticed the colorful Music Express ride reflecting in his glasses and saw an opportunity. Ryan write quite a bit about music and I thought this might make an interesting picture for him and his music stuff. It was a fun aside during our work for the paper today. Photograph by Richard Sayer.
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“I have been skateboarding since I was three. I come out here everyday except Sunday, because we go to church. It just makes my day happy. If I come out of school in a bad mood, I just come out here and skateboard it off,” says Jerry Forsyth, 12 of Meadville, about skating at the Meadville skate park.
Meadville Tribune Photo By: Harmony Motter This young man loves to jump and when he was done jumping he celebrated. I felt that way after taking this picture. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer taken at my rather rushed stop at Special Olympics today--I'd like to one day do this assignment and spend all day, make a picture story and slideshow and maybe even a little multi-media with audio and video too--maybe next year.
Good morning Jim...This is a photo that I snapped yesterday of a Maplewod High School softball catcher. I duplicated the image and saved one picture in color and the other in grayscale. Do you prefer color or black and white photographs?
Meadville Tribune Photo By: Harmony Motter In learning and teaching photography there are certain devices we go over. The 'rule of thirds' - a picture withing a picture, a frame within a frame ,,,,and many others including symmetry. Symmetry is where both halves of the picture a balanced almost perfectly. Tonight I decided to shoot volleyball with a long lens and try some different angles. When you photograph something every day or nearly everyday sometimes you just want to approach it in a completely different way from your normal. As I climbed the bleacher and got mid court I saw the poles that indicate where the out of bounds marker is(--and I'm guessing it also acts as an angle barrier that the ball has to be hit over the net between the posts) i saw George Schroeder being somewhat cut into a mirror image. George is a very good guy. He dedicates a great deal of his time to young people and referees from September to well into June in volleyball and basketball. He has had his picture taken and put into the paper many times. He always has something funny to say when I see him and jokingly points out his 'best side' so that when I do put his picture in the paper. He is always kidding around about it and I like to kid back. But tonight I thought I pull page out of photography 101 and create an image using a pictorial device--it must work if it has become a device right? Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer.
Since I posted the photo of Lash again, I thought I'd post something I haven't posted before(at least I don't think I have). I have photographed Manuella about 4 times now and each time we try different things to try to have many different looks for her portfolio. Each time I try something new with lighting and each time I learn something new to apply to the next shoot. Its fun working with someone who wants to get something unique and really pushes me to experiment further--even if it doesn't always work out. SayerMotter photographs by Richard Sayer. And to make up for the re-posting of Lash below--I included a bonus picture of Manuella.
This was one of my favorite photos from last year. This was Lash the day before his 100th birthday. A story was told by one of his close friends that Lash had said that he was going to give up sex when he turned 100. Everybody laughed. Awhile later I watched Lash greet every person who came to his party. I noticed he especially took an interest in the girls who came to wish him his birthday. I when I left I shook his hand and said i noticed you really were playing it when a woman came to shake your hand and I also realized that you still have a few hours before you turn 100. Lash looked and me with a sideways smile and asked, 'Do you think i might get lucky tonight?' I had this picture posted at Allegheny College all semester and I took it down tonight. It still makes me smile. Mead
Recently Idid the Spring sports photos for Saegertown High School. This is a chaotic couple of hours going from one team to the next and collecting picture orders and then taking the photos. And for Spring Sports these are done before the season starts--which means the outside sports are usually done inside. It looks sorta funny having a baseball or softball team photo taken inside. Now the easy thing to do is to just take a picture and crop and tone it it and let it be just what it is. For memory mates there are dozens of templates that are out there that all the photographer has to do is place the photos in the pre-made shapes and type a name where the template says the name should go. Usually these have some sort of clip art of a ball or glove. I hate those. And they aren't personalized really. So this year I designed a different memory mate for each sport. For the softball team I cutout the background of the gym floor so that the team didn't look out of place. Now this isn't smart business. The time it took me to do this and to custom design each memory made basically took away any profit to be had, but to me its worth it. I create something unique and hopefully special for these athletes. I don't like the idea that one school can have the same basic memory mate as another school--possibly in the same district, so to me - the extra work is better than giving a product I wouldn't be proud of. SayerMotter Photograph and design by Richard Sayer
The other day I was at Allegheny College to help one of my students make a big print of one of her photographs. It was a busy day and I was running. As the print was going through the printer I excused myself to use the bathroom. When I went in I saw there was an image on glass hanging from the ceiling. I went back to get my camera and made a few frames. I told my student, a very talented Heidi Stroh, and then told her she should have a look. As she was checking out the art work I made a few pictures of her. I am working on a series that I hope will appear in The Meadville Tribune called 'folk' in which I make portrait of people and write a little about them and their thoughts. This will be one of those portraits I hope, Heidi wrote some very insightful words about art and looking at art that I will include with her portrait. I hope to post these somewhere as well once the series gets under way. Photograph by Richard Sayer. The artwork was done by another former student Janna Dickerson who is doing some pretty impressive work in her Junior year at the college.
There is no escaping it. If you choose to work for a newspaper you will have to shoot sad pictures, tragic pictures and quite frankly...pictures you wish you didn't have to take. But they are important. I chose to be a photojournalist not because I wanted to get paid to take pictures, but because I felt photographs have an extremely important role in our lives, in our history, in our self evaluation. Today I had to cover the funeral of Capt. Joshua McClimans for The Meadville Tribune in nearby Jamestown, Pennsylvania. These are very difficult assignments. I believe grieving is a personal thing, yet a soldiers death is meaningful - perhaps beyond our scope of reasoning - we call this soldier 'ours' because he was American and from our home. I feel for the family, I feel for the community, I feel for America and I feel for the world. A soldiers death brings the lives of people from around the globe together in a fundamental understanding of life and how we live.
And many would say there are politics involved and ideologies....but not on this day, not with this family and friends...and not on the alter or on the street lined with people truly saddened stretched from the church to the cemetery, not on the hallowed ground where hundreds, possibly thousands joined together almost as family and mourned the loss of this soldier. Ultimately its a personal thing, a family thing, but watching today as people gathered together it was hard not to see something more than a family who lost their son, brother, grandson, cousin or dad.... or dad!(that gets me everytime)... but the loss is for all of us. As a journalist I feel I need to look at the whole picture and find the story. As a photojournalist this means seeing the event as a single image that encapsulates the story or part of the story that brings us closer to the essence of what is in front of us. Capt. McClimans left behind a young son named Max. I watched this young man as he listened to a soldier present him with an American flag. His face looked as if he didn't really understand what was going on. Then the soldier ended his speech and paused for a second looking at Max's face and then held his fist up for a fist bump(its sort of a handshake, but it indicates you're cool, you're alright, your my friend) and Max understood this and his eyes lit up as he connected with this soldier. Capt. McClimans left behind a mother and father. It is said a parent should never bury their children. I watched these two in deep sorrow, and this is after more than two weeks since their son was killed. I don't know if they'll ever get over this loss, I suspect not, even long after they resume their daily lives, the loss will be continue to be immeasurable. And thats what I meant about grieving being a personal thing. We can converge on little Jamestown by the thousands to say goodbye and to cover the story of loss, but its the family who will have to live with this loss so deeply and without the possibility of forgetting. I guess when I think about this as I go about my work for the newspaper I get at least a little sense that our documenting history as best as we can--and believe me--I know how limited our ability is to get the story fully and with proper understanding--that we might be doing some good to help remember and hopefully create understanding. I feel it is our only hope to advance mankind. Meadville Tribune photographs by Richard Sayer. Click below to be re-directed to the Meadville Tribune for more photographs from today. |