This was one of my favorite portraits. Its of Jim, an unbelievable painter who left this world far too early. I had him sit for one roll of Black and white film one afternoon at Edinboro University. It was my favorite time with Jim. Photograph by Richard Sayer
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I'm getting ready to begin teaching tomorrow and getting my syllabus together and planning out assignments. I'm going to give this assignment based on a book by Ed Kashi called Three. He took images from his career and began putting them together in sets of three to see what kinds of relationships he could discover. I thought this was a pretty neat idea-of course Kashi's work is beyond what I've done, but its something I may start looking up. For fun I took three images from the same disc shot one morning and put them together. Its my first three.
Lizzy said she'll be heading to New York trying to get acting gigs. I helped her with some head shots in May in which we tried several approaches to modern publicity headshots including some character type shots. Headshots today are much more then just an 8 x 10 close up of the face. They are to engage a part of the the actors personality and show particular style. Actors now have several headshots and use different styles to land different types of roles. This image is one that I particularly liked, but not sure if its a good one for her purposes. Photograph by Richard Sayer
Of the pictures I've taken this week at the Crawford County Fair, one of the first is still one of my favorites. I made this portrait of Nancy Kopf, a retire teacher from Maplewood Elementary School who I've run across over the years. Her glasses have been favorites of mine for years and her laugh and attitude toward life is fantastic. Her heart is even bigger.
Last year one of my favorite subjects passed away. Ray Eldridge who was a local Santa Claus. Nancy may be my new Santa Claus. I may even follow her into the Amazon next summer if all falls into place. Meadville Tribune photo by Richard Sayer This picture was a little funny to me because of Jesse James face as this woman struggled with her cell phone to take a photo, but the funniest part to me was that I had to ask someone to point out the famous person everyone else, but me knows. He seemed like a real nice guy as he signed autographs and was patient posing for photo after photo. I'm not a big fan of photographing famous people, but I think its a lot better than being famous...well except for the money thing. Meadville Tribune photo by Richard Sayer
As I was walking in to photograph Tuesday nights musical acts at the fair I just happened to catch that three teenage girls were on a mission to find a belt for the main act that night Jason Aldean. A dad of one of the girls was on the backstage crew and was sent to get the country star a new belt to wear in the show. He enlisted the help of his daughter and her two friends who were very excited about it. "Lets kiss it," one said after they picked one out. When they got the belt they, in unison kissed a different part of the belt. "This made my summer!" Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
I had photographed this artist who was upset that her work wasn't even allowed to be entered into the Crawford County Fair. Refused because it didn't fit any of the categories. At first I laughed thinking why would we do a story n this, would we do a story about someone who brought a jar of worms to enter into the preserves category and was refused? I felt the story, since it was a personal story about this woman and her wish to bring it to everyone's attention, had to be represented by a personal sort of portrait. I see reflections a lot in my work, so much so I get tired of them myself, yet when a picture lacks something and its possible to increase its interest with a reflection, I go back to it time and again. I shot a handful of frames with this person staring at the camera and then off. Then I suggested she lean a little more against the van window to get an even tighter composition and connection between subject and reflection. She just leaned her head over and the gesture seemed to give the picture empathy and a life beyond just a simple picture. I may even like it better in Black and white but wanted to show it in color here so everyone could see the colors in the artwork. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
Photography is about many things - lighting, composition and subject matter, but the most important element is that split second captured moment - when that is right you can have break downs in the technical things in a photograph and it will still read real well. The lighting on this portrait of my friend could be vastly improved, but that moment of thought that was captured here for me goes beyond the things I could've done better. From this photo session we had many very nicely lit, very strongly composed images, but this one stood out.
During a portrait session at Stainbrook Park below the Woodcock Dam with Mathew and Alayna Nale of Saegertown. Photograph by Harmony Motter
This is a manipulated image from a senior portrait photo shoot this week. Wes is from Linesville and the colors are orange and black. I took this image inside a culvert and when I was preparing it for a proof I decided to try incorporating the school colors to make something beyond just a portrait and this is what came from that. Something I'll explore a little more in my attempt to try to find something different that we can offer our clients in NW PA.
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