Above is a picture I took tonight at the Halloween parade, my third night parade of the week. Below was from the Conneaut Lake Parade on Wed. It was a mishap when one twirler got a little too close to another. Fortunately no one was injured. The shot tonight was my favorite picture because I was thinking, oh God, this is like the tenth time I've had to photograph this parade and I am as uninspired as you can get---and then I see how much excitement these kids had and I got a it envious and thought--why am I not excited about it too! I guess I'm a little tired too. As great as it is that I get to take pictures for a living, I guess even I have days I'm not as into it. But thankfully I did see these three kids and was reminded that I should be excited about the life I get to document that is all around me! Meadville Tribune photographs by Richard Sayer
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Harmony had some fun with some photographs she took in downtown Cambridge Springs inviting our facebook friends to guess where the pictures were taken. We got quite a number of responses which is great. So when I took this picture today I thought it was something to test everyone's ability to be really aware of their surroundings. One hint--The 'F' isn't permanent. If you didn't get to this page through facebook, feel free to guess in the comments box in this blog. OK another hint, the picture was taken Thursday at around 5:30 p.m. Photograph by Richard Sayer
To the locals…Thanks for playing Where O Where in Crawford County was Harmony Motter.
I know that you have been losing sleep over this. I will stop the madness and tell you that I was in…Cambridge Springs. If you are driving through Cambridge anytime soon, slow down and take a closer look. It really is a neat little town. Have a Happy Day! Harmony In looking around last night for pictures I could capture in what light was available to me I stumbled on this scene while walking behind the band playing. I usually prefer faces, but just sort of thought this was cool!Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
Cambridge Springs (aka the spa) held what will be my first of three night-time parade to photograph this week. I really don't care for flash photography, but it is necessary in night parades, but I still look for shots where I don't need to use a flash. With the firetruck flashing its lights I saw an opportunity let that light up mu background and create some bleed around light with a longer than usual exposure for hand holding. I set the camera at about a 8th of a second and just tried to hols still and let what wnted to record be recorded. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
A studio provides very controllable light. It allows you time to create something because the light doesn't change. This is a good thing, but it does make it much harder to get naturalistic images, or moments. Subjects pose instead of just be.... this is hard for a photojournalist mind, so when I'm working for our business, doing portraits or model portfolios, I need to utilize what I know about moments and capturing them and apply it to that work. Our work at SayerMotter Photography will stand apart from others, good or bad, because of what we strive for, what we see as good photography and capturing of the people we photograph. We're banking on the idea that we're not the only ones looking for styles of photography we so so much love and that essence of capturing a little more than just a likeness. Photogra
Working with a model is the exact opposite of working to tell a story for the newspaper. Everything is contrived, the place, time, hair, dress, pose....everything. We still think about similar things, light, composition, angle and capturing something beyond just the obvious. Sometimes just picking the location can set up the interest for the photo, but just location isn't enough if the subject doesn't bring something, or if the photographer doesn't bring something out in the subject. Its not easy getting really good fashion photographs--especially with natural light, but I'm finding it interesting learning with each person I photograph--just a little bit more. Photograph by Richard Sayer
Some assignments you want to last all day. A man named Joe Coyle is making a film at Hotel Conneaut using teenage actors from Crawford County. Its fun watching as they set up shots and run scenes, get ready and get make-up on. Abby Phillips of Meadville is playing an actress-playing a witch in the film and she was getting made-up prior to her scenes. I enjoyed this picture because of the color and how the make-up artist's hair hung down obscuring one of Abby's eyes. I felt it added some compositional interest to an otherwise straightforward shot. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
I was sent out to photograph some Right to Life supporters who were holding rather large and graphic photographs of aborted fetuses in front of City Hall. It is important for a journalist to be open minded when telling someone elses story so I went with no preconceptions at all to document what I saw. I got close and photographed the leader of the group, a soft-spoken man from Pittsburgh who was up here with his group on the request of a local man from Meadville's request. I took pictures of the leader and one other person holing the signs, there were probably about 8-10 people in all. When I was leaving I walked up the the top of the parking garage where I parked my car and made this frame. I felt it was a fair depiction of the man and his group who are telling of what they think of as a wrong and with the bus in the background it gives a sort of eerie sense of what he believes he is fighting for as well as how the images he is holding up can be shocking and even disturbing to look at or have our children look at. This simple frame asks more questions than it answers. Photograph by Richard Sayer
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