'Can I ask you why you're taking pictures with your phone?' Since I got my camera phone it has been fun listening to people talk about how i have thousands of dollars worth of sophisticated camera equipment around my neck and I pulled out my camera phone to make a picture. I think people are wondering why would i bother. These phone cameras have been fascinating photographers all over the world--not because they make better pictures than we can make with our 'real' cameras, but because they offer us a different way of seeing an image and recording it. The quality is akin to some of the early digital dslrs and we know that we'll never get huge blow up--but we can get nice small enlargements from them and by using some of the apps like hipstamatic and instagram we can create different images for our clients and ourselves. Personally I've become fascinated with the square format and am trying to relearn how to compose pictures within the frame--even though the edges are different than what I'm used to seeing in my old 35mm format. So the why isn't out of laziness or anything like that--it is entirely because it is a different way of making an image---and sometimes, when I'm thinking like a photographer and concentrating on all the right things photographers are supposed to concentrate on, they turn out pretty neat. Photographs from Tina and Jason's wedding by Richard Sayer
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I often say that dogs are my favorite kind of people. My two guys are two of the best pals I've ever had. I was asked if I do pet photography and I chuckled. I photograph my pets. I'm not sure if I want to get into pet photography--to me the best pictures of dogs and cats come when you're not trying to force it--when you just let them be themselves and if possible don't let them know you're watching. The light was hitting lil bro' nicely the other day and I had just learned how to make my iP4 zoom so I tried it out. If bro sees me taking his picture he turns his head away..something about it makes him uncomfortable. So with this zoom capability I could zero in on him. But the iP4 zoomed isn't exactly a stable camera and the picture was slightly jiggled(I was also sorta shooting from the hip so he didn't catch on to what I was doing. I was a little bummed that it wasn't sharp. So I took the image into photoshop and began applying layers of filters and tried to create a drawing/painting look. It would still be better if it was sharp, but I did like that I was able to make something--maybe just a fridge gallery photo, but something out of it anyway. But I don't think I'm going to become a pet photographer anytime soon, Photograph photoshopped by Richard Sayer
Its one of those weird things that is hard to explain about what we do as photographers. We gravitate towards noticing things.... people that love cars see a car or hear a car in the distance and get excited. Photographers develop this same sort of intuition or ability to notice things that are part of their way of seeing. Some photographers see silhouettes and lights and darks really well, some see action and moments really well. With me--it reflections- I could live inside of reflections ad be enthused all the time. This was taken during a trip to NJ and we met up with some friends and went to the Tic Toc diner---this place is heaven for a guy who sees reflections--I could make a book of 200 pictures in this place without much effort at all! Great stuff. This is a posed group shot of the four of us taken with my iphone. Photograph by Richard Sayer
One of the things I like about this notion of the iphone-note taking (or taking note of) is the quickness of just making an image that sometimes is just something pretty. I've been really fascinated lately watching the posts of photographer Michael Williamson who makes pictures everyday. His pictures are sometimes beautiful, sometimes really poignant and always thought provoking. I snapped this picture mostly because I wanted to just make a note of something beautiful in my yard--and that I know my mom loves pictures of flowers and sometimes I post pictures she doesn't much care for and I like to give her one once in awhile--she is mom afterall!!!!This isn't a picture that will make it to any portfolio, but I am glad I take moments once in awhile to just stop and smell(and snap a photo) the roses. Photograph by Richard Sayer
I cut my teeth on the street! Sounds like a tough time--but in my case not really. My early heroes in photography were street photographers, so we took to the street. We used to get together to 'go out shooting!' We'd jus get together and pick a place to go and see what kind of pictures we could make. Some of my most fun times were doing this. Boston, Providence, New York...just go with camera and make photos. Most of my portfolio from early on came from these lets 'go out shooting' trips. What made a good photo from these trips wasn't ever something we expected. We didn't go places to make picture postcards of the place or just document the mundane. We went to try to capture the essence of the place through it place and its people--there always had to be people in our photographs (sometimes animals or birds substituted adequately for subject matter). My friend Duane capture the best of show photo during one of our trips to Boston, two kids whispering that he title 'Pssst!' (its a picture we'd probably be reluctant to take today without first finding the parents and asking permission---different times). But what we learned on the streets was amazing. We really made some great photos and paved the way for the type of work we make today. So when I take a few moments to make photos on the street it really invigorates me.... it takes me to the days of Paul Strand and Andre Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson.... though admittedly since its more modern I think of Wingrand a lot. think our truest portraits of community can be found on the street. Photographs by Richard Sayer.
I was thinking about Tom Dracup today as I was photographing reflections on the choppy water at Conneaut Lake waiting for an assignment to happen. Tom was a painter and we shared space at Edinboro University for awhile in the Hamilton Hall. One of his many ideas was to photograph water surfaces and then paint them. I remember him showing me photograph after photograph of these surfaces of water. I often said to him--'heck with painting them Tom, show the photos!' I've been pretty fascinated again lately with 'abstract' surfaces I see. Yesterday I posted a photo and said it needs a person in it...and it does. I often think this about a photo, but today, as I was photographing the surface of the water as it went past a docked paddle boat a couple ducks came swimming by and added something that took it away from purely abstract shapes and patterns etc... and made it about something - with a cool background or setting. Photograph by Richard Sayer.
PS my wife thinks I need to add that this is an unaltered photo. It really is other than a little crop off the right and bottom. Everytime it rains and I'm at work I go over to the window and look out hoping to see a person walking by with an umbrella. The building reflects so beautifully in the wetness on top of the blacktop that I know the right situation will make a stunning photograph. It hasn't happened yet. I think it needs to be a bright umbrella and the sun has to be out as it was when I made this picture. I also learned that if the sun is out I'll need to make the picture with my dslr and not my iphone because the auto exposure just didn't hold the highlights and that I know I can fix with my dslr....but there is a picture to be had here for sure--patience! I'll get it eventually. I don't always hope for rain, but I'll admit-- I want to make this picture so I hope it rains a lot this summer! And I hope people with bright umbrellas are out walking in it and cutting through parking lots and alleys!!!! Photograph by Richard Sayer. This was made with a different lens choice on the iphone and hipstamatic--if created the green vignette which helped hold the highlights but I'm not as keen on the color.
The other day I had to photograph a church. I admit everytime I have to photograph a church or enter a church the main feeling I have is doubt. I don't doubt that there is a force more powerful than me at work here...just look at nature, look at the vastness of space and all the stuff hurling around in it...there is definitely a higher power. But I always doubt religion---maybe because religion itself can't make up its mind. My dad always used to tell me that he didn't know, but he believes in this--'Do unto others as you would have done unto you.' He took that out of his learning over the years. His mom was a believer of Jesus. I remember being little and staying over gramma and grampas house and when she put me to bed she would recite the lords prayer. When she did this her face scrunched up in deep thought. She not only said the words but felt them deeply. She was a great woman. So I don't not believe, but I have my doubts. I remember a painting called 'doubting Thomas' where this guy in a suit seemed to be investigating an earthquake and almost without believing what he could see he placed his finger into the crack of the earth to see if it was real. I was thinking about all this stuff that day I was sent out to photograph this church. God and doubt, God and Country, God and religion and God and Nature. It was a good day. Photographs by Richard Sayer. Congrats to Tina and Jason Columbus, married today at the Riverside Inn! It was a fun day with good people! SayerMotter Photographs altered in a sketch app on an iphone by Richard Sayer
Way back when..... Old photographers talk endlessly about the film days. It was really something. We took our know how and applied it(sometimes with crossed fingers) and did our job. Manual exposure, manual focus...sometimes carrying this other piece of equipment called a light meter.... and we shot pictures. Then after the event was done and it couldn't be re-thought and tried again, we developed our pictures to see what we got. Digital has certainly changed all that and I'm one of those older dudes who thinks digital has made us better. What was great about the old days is we really had to think about the technical stuff and then work our eye...but now we can think, but test it immediately to know--then give over to our eyes knowing everything is working....we spend more time thinking about the image and a little less thinking about the technical stuff(Yes the best of us still dwell on the technical...but boy its great taking a quick peak at the back to know we're on !!!) In the last few weeks I've photographed two weddings--one officially...it has really made me think about alot of things. I was remembering bringing my new camera and lenses that my mom and dad bought me for graduation because I was showing an interest in photography and decided to try to go to photography school to my brothers wedding and making this picture(well this is only part of the picture and re-shot on the iphone) of my new sister in law Fran in the doorway of the church. I remember at the time thinking this was a great photo and maybe I could do weddings. I quickly talked myself out of it because I remember how much I hated photographers at weddings---always butting in and making you pose. Years later I realized--partly because of my work at the newspaper that the best pictures weren't the posed one--they were like this picture of Fran---something I saw and captured--something real. This is what I try to bring to weddings and photographing my niece's wedding as an uncle with a camera and photographing a wedding this weekend I realized that, more than ever, that I'm right.... the best pictures capture what is there unfolding before us...real moments, not posed or staged. Even when I've felt I could be in a better position, I feel like if I shot a picture...it was a real picture...it was a real moment. Photograph by brother-in-law-Dick of Fran Powers Sayer.
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