The Saturday morning photo shoot was unexpectedly postponed so this allowed me to stay up past bed-time to work on cropping and toning some more of the portraits I've taken over the last week---and I'm nearly caught up. This photograph is one of Rita taken on Thursday. Rita is likely to be busy today, the 4th of July. She and her husband Bob are members of the Veterans of the Vietnam War Post 52, I'm not sure if they will be taking part in the Meadville 4th ceremony in Diamond Park, but I wouldn't be surprised. I often try to photograph a profile in my portrait sessions, some work, some don't. I laugh when they don't work because its seldom because of the person---its almost always because of the light. When a profile is what we call broadly lit--meaning the light comes from mostly the camera side of the face all the great detail of the profile is lost. Profile photos are almost 100% better when they are short lit--the light is more toward the back of the face and skimming across the features. I know I have about 150 more pictures of Rita to look through and tone some of, and I know there are some more profiles to go through to see which one's have that little extra something that will get me to go to the next level of toning and color correcting---I've already deleted the ones that made me laugh because I forgot how to light a profile for just a few moments(I will still try something even if I know it doesn't work--just to see if I can make it work! Haven't made a broadly lit profile work yet!) SayerMotter Photograph by Richard Sayer
0 Comments
This has been a busy couple weeks, many portrait sessions and much much cropping and toning of images(clients who are chomping at the bit to see their pictures, we're getting real close, early week I promise to have something for you!) We've taken over 3,000 photographs in the last week alone. We've cropped and toned about 400 of those in preparation to meet with our subjects. These numbers add up to a good week for people who love photography as much as we do. Tomorrow is the last day of our summer free sessions offer, as long as you let us know by the end of the day on the 4th that you want to schedule a session with us sometime this summer, the shoot is free.
We've been told that our sessions are fun, even husbands who weren't overly interested in going to the photographer( guys - we're not the dentist you know) came away telling us that it was fun. You can see from the pictures above that we're serious and playful and want to get images that will hopefully not only please our clients today, but will help them remember this time in their lives years from now. It's what we live to do at SayerMotter Photography. Send us a message today and lets get you booked for a shoot this summer. SayerMotter Photographs One of the problems with working as a photographer for a newspaper and owning a photo business is when do I schedule time to shoot portraits. One question I ask a lot is are you a night owl? Often times I like to work late night, for a number of reasons, we're not usually pressed to get to another appointment, we just have to stay awake. So when Rita said she could do a late night session I knew we'd have the time to play around. From a little after 9 p.m. til nearly 1 a.m. we shot a lot of portraits with a few outfit changes(not as many outfit changes as outfits brought by Rita--I said a few outfit changes Rita, not a few wardrobes!!!!! :) ) One of the items Rita brought was this big scarf that somehow developed into the idea above. It was a strange thing, I set it up and then went into a dark room in order to allow the fabric to be back light and Rita had to pose to only the cloth and voice coming from the shadows. We had a nice session, a bunch of laughs and made some really nice portraits of Rita. You may see one or two more over the next few days. SayerMotter Photograph by Richard Sayer
There's a famous statement made by an artist that goes something like this, we spend many years learning how to not draw like a child anymore, then we spend the rest of our lives trying to learn how to draw like a child again. Same goes for photography. We learn to put everything important neatly into the frame, to organize the elements to create a subject matter. Sometimes we forget to just let things go out of the frame. I try hard to allow things to go out of my frame and try to snap pictures as it is happening. I get a mixed bag of results doing this, but those few that work, boy it makes the practice worth it. I remember -remembering this as I photographed the Hyatt's walking the railroad tracks recently and though I didn't really accomplish a great frame from allowing my subject to leave my frame, I did like this picture that wouldn't have been made if I didn't think to try to allow her walk right past me and out of what my camera could see. Sometimes its important to not record everything neatly, but to allow the off-set or even missing elements to tell us what the story is, or what the portrait is to be. SayerMotter Photograph by Richard Sayer
|