i know won't work just in order to get my subject relaxed and comfortable with me. I never admit that I know it won't work, but just quietly shoot and then move on....and sometimes I'm surprised that it does, in fact work. The top picture is a fun one....that one is for Alex....the rest will be for mom! SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer.
"He really doesn't even want to have his pictures don..." This is often the conversation we have with a mom of high school senior. Often followed by 'we're not looking for anything to special, just a couple of nice shots...maybe some out doors.' So most of the time going into a senior portrait shoot with a high school senior means we're photographing someone that really doesn't want to be there. Normally this isn't good, but I do my best to engage the senior in conversation to loosen him up and usually I just say--'sometimes you just have to do something for mom!' Alex didn't really want to do senior pictures, but you'd never know it. He always seems to be smiling or laughing and really seems laid back. When I snapped a few pictures of him hamming it up he seemed to actually be having fun. I like to keep it real loose during photo shoots. I always think our personalities will peak out of a pose if we're more relaxed and allowed to have fun. I'll take several pictures that
i know won't work just in order to get my subject relaxed and comfortable with me. I never admit that I know it won't work, but just quietly shoot and then move on....and sometimes I'm surprised that it does, in fact work. The top picture is a fun one....that one is for Alex....the rest will be for mom! SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer.
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The Meadville Golf team gets to play on a very nice course at the Country Club. On Wed. that is where we met to snap their team and individual pictures. A few added requests--which I always try to honor because they are more fun usually to do than just the straights shots and group shots-- were a brother and sister together in one picture and the girls team wanted a picture with their coach. I made a couple of standard groups with the coach and then got in real close to just focus on the eyes and glasses of the coach and made a couple pictures like that. These aren't pictures that will win awards or even are likely to be purchased by anyone, but they break up the posing and setting up and give us a chance to be more relaxed and every time a subject is relaxed--the pictures turn out better. So sometimes a picture or two taken in a few seconds that probably won't be purchased, is worth a great deal more in the long run and certainly isn't a waste of time to do. SayerMotter photographs by Richard Sayer.
Me: 'So I have this idea to shoot the girls soccer pictures at night using a smoke machine!'
Tammy who asked me if I'd photograph the girls: "Awesome, lets do it!" That conversation was over the summer and tonight we did it. The lighting wasn't easy, but i had a couple of assistants - thanks to some willing parents - and the the wind was making the smoke from the smoke machine nearly impossible to control, but we figured it out and tried to make a different look to MASH girls Soccer. As with all things I do I immediately see things to do better next time around, but these turned out ok I think, especially for a first try. These girls seemed to want to have their pictures done in a different way than they have in the past and that is very great. I'm going to work on these pictures this coming week and try to find a way to make them really sing--I'm even thinking about playing with the idea of black and white for some aspects of the photos, I'll experiment and see if anyone likes it before I commit to it though! SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer. And the fire department wasn't called! Below, I began working out a design for the sports mate, not sure if I'm sold on it 100% but I'll work it out over the week off from work I have coming up. I did laugh though as I was working out the design I never looked to see if the girl featured in the picture even wanted a sports mate.... she doesn't! I one time design a sports/memory mate for a team before looking at the orders only to discover that no one ordered a sports/memory mate... you'd think I'd learn. Anyway I'm going to give this a day or two and decide if I want to totally re-work the idea or just tweak things a little. I do have another thought that I'll need to try! As well as doing one with just the varsity team The problem with having gone to art school and learning to not compromise my ideas and work is that, when I stumble upon something that elevates my work to a different place, there is no turning back and there is no way to make it easier to accomplish. Each design I come up with is more complicated to make, and yet since I can't be satisfied with simply reproducing the same thing over and over again, I insist on putting in the extra time and effort to do the work to get the results I want. I know if I adopted a different philosophy I'd actually get things done sooner, have more time to do other things(like tend to my yard and house) and possibly turn some sort of profit in business(thats another whole issue with me!). Today I completed the final design for the Saegertown Fall Sports MemoryMates by designing the Junior high football team. This, started out by my thinking I want to make a simple easy to reproduce design, but then I began seeing different possibilities and the next thing I know I'm playing with nearly 20 layers in photoshop and overlapping and shadowing etc..... And I think the result is something I'm proud of(ask me again in a couple weeks!) If my goal is to create one of a kind designs, then I guess this is what I'll have to go through each time. The more I do these the more I see potential of really going somewhere with them, though if this keeps up I'll need to quit my other jobs. So even though I still have to make about 30 more of these sportsmates for the football team--I should be able to get them back to the kids sometime next week. Half the orders are done and returned to the coaches for distribution and all but the Jun high football team are at the printer! We're getting there gang! Hope you find the images worth the wait.
I have to admit I don't pace value on things the way a lot of people do. Don't get me wrong, I have a couple shirts that were my grandfathers that I value greatly, but money wise....I've never quite gotten it! Earlier this year I made up my mind that I was going to seek help to make prints and show my work. This proved to be more difficult than I hoped and expensive. I didn't so much mind the cost, but I never seemed content with the results. Something about making yourself I guess. Anyway the most expensive piece I have ever made was this one, but I was never happy with it. I had made a last second change to it that I thought was a good move but later regretted and the color was never quite right. I showed it this summer but was actually a little embarrassed by it. I'm planning to show it again in the faculty show, but I've gone into the print and wrote and drew all over it. In places I've etched out the ink in the original. I wanted to take this piece to a new place beyond where it was. In some ways I wanted to save the piece. I'm not sure if I did this or not, but we'll see. I will show it and find out what people think. The key here for me is layering of information and layering of my technique. I don't really paint as much as I'd like, so my scribbles and writing on this piece are an attempt to think like a painter still. I great influence of mine recently said he wished he was seeing more of my painting---and I want to make paintings to show him and I think in a lot of ways that this is painting, but I know he'd sort of snicker at me and say--"thats just clever!' In any event, it is me still trying to find a way to voice my opinion and viewpoints through art. I hope its worth the effort, if not, I'm still having the time of my life trying to figure it all out. tear#78(rewored from tear #31 and tear #35) by Richard Sayer.
This morning I was able to spend some time on the Cross Country team photos and expect to send them to printer tonight. This is the preliminary design that might get a few tweaks along the way. I usually take some more fun group photos with the kids having a chance to make faces or express themselves outside the standard straight team photo. But I don't usually get a chance to incorporate them into anything other than posting to facebook or on my website. But today I thought a little about old scrapbooks and tried to make these in the background, Even though many people get covered up by the overlapping I think at least the fact that they are having fun or showing their spirit in what you can see will show through. Trying to make the memory of picture day seem a little less of a chore than it usually is....even I didn't want to become a photographer years ago because I hated picture day and having to pose---especially for team photos. I certainly want picture day to be relaxed and much more fun for everybody--so I say stick your tongues out, raise your hands over your head, look like the thinker, make a funny face and cross yours arms and lean on each other....all to relax and hopefully not feel stiff and like this is wasting my clients time by being bored to tears. And I try to do it in under an hour---I think we were done in 1/2 hour for Cross Country.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten as a photographer came from Jim Stefanucci who told me that when he's on an assignment, before he leaves he turns around and gives one last look. Sometimes this provides you with something you didn't see--sometimes it reinforces that Yep! I got what I needed...I got the shot. Today I was heading to an assignment and as I was leaving I was seeing all sorts of great light and shadow. I saw my shadow as I walked down the stairs and thought about making a picture, but didn't. Then as I was walking Jim's lesson came into my mind and I turned and just help the camera and made one frame of my shadow as I stood in the ally at work. I made this my facebook profile. It reminds my of a Clifford Still painting. Photograph by Richard Sayer.
I'm working out the bugs for a new website which will feature the work I do for the newspaper. Once I have it figured out it will be linked to meadvilletribune.com. This will be a place to see the photographs taken during daily assignments at the newspaper. A prototype of the site can be seen here or by clicking on the photo above. This is an effort to keep separate my work as a journalist from the commercial work I do for clients. I want to continue showing my work at the paper beyond just the printed page in order to show a more varied and diverse approach to the craft of photography within the ethical concerns of journalism. So this new site will hopefully accomplish this. I live a photographic life and its important to me that I share what I make with as many people as possible. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer for an up-coming story about the haunted displays at Conneaut Lake Park. Please See Tuesday's Tribune for the story and more photos!
Those of you who have looked at the featured photo of the day that we've been posting for over two years now...and who read my ramblins have read how I live a photographic life. Most of what I do and think evolves around making pictures. I shoot pictures for the local paper, I shoot pictures for my studio business, I teach at Allegheny and I make my own work on the side. Each year the faculty at Allegheny have a show. Since I'm a painter as well sometimes I've shown those, but mostly I show my personal work done with photography, not my commercial or photojournalism work, but the work I do expressing ideas. In recent years I've been making pieces using photography, but doing it much more like Rauschenburg used printmaking and painting. I'm revisiting old studies I made in drawing and painting and bringing some of those concepts back and mingling them in with new concepts. I'm currently working on several new ideas in which this piece, which if I'm happy with the print that arrived a few moments ago that I have yet to look at, will be in the faculty show. Its exciting when a new direction appears to me. Many ask me where my ideas come from and it is really hard to explain, but I always sort of feel like I'm working on that original idea that got me started in art many years ago and that was trying to figure out what all of this means...this life stuff. Living is great, but what are accomplishing in the long run and in the big picture? I was in a waiting room earlier today and I heard this elderly woman, who was pointing out a blue fish in the giant fish tank there, that "God is an artist!" You bet. I like this notion that the creator is perhaps in the midst of doing the same thing I am, trying to figure it all out and in the process making something to share. Of course I think the creator, or nature or God or what ever form of higher power there is is quite a bit further along than I am here making my little pictures, but if I can question on this level, maybe I can learn something and move on up to a new a level...I guess that seems logical...learn learn learn. Photo manipuation piece by Richard Sayer. I'm working on the title--but it'll be something like "Pour sketch 39: Study of a broken Beethoven symphony with God."
I always look back at my old work. I find that when I was young and hungry that I would try a lot of things that I perhaps am now old enough and wise enough to actually accomplish. We lose certain things as we get older(what we gain is better-don't get me wrong) but that youthful desire to create greater things and not knowing the vastness of work out there where others have done similar or the same sort of thing is something that you just can't get back. But in looking at old work we can--sort of get a little of that back and see that we may or may not have been on to something. One thing we learned in photo school was to hand color our prints(sort of an antiquated notion for sure now!) We used photo oils. One day I heard of a technique using pastel chalks and a lot of fixitive. I went to town. I remember making this image and getting a lot of positive comments about it. I sorta laugh about it now looking at it. But it was a good lesson to learn and I actually still have this print. The above portrait I also remember making and getting a lot of feedback on. And though I wouldn't approach a picture at all like this now, it is interesting to see that I did then and in a way I would like to think about this as a jumping off point again for an improved portrait today. Photos from 20 plus years ago by Richard Sayer.
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