Its customary to kid the groom to be before his wedding. Us old married guys usually say things like 'dead man walking' or 'its not too late.' We say this with a laugh because we know how lucky we are to be married and have someone by our side who love us(we scratch our heads actually and wonder how the hell we managed to convince someone to marry us!) I remember kidding Josh the days leading up to his wedding and when I saw this picture today and look on his face and Debbies all I could think of was he's thinking--take this Uncle Dick, I'm a happy man and in love so you can take your cynical little jokes and just stick em where the sun don't shine! And I will! That moment right after the I dos is quite the special moment for sure. They are no longer two -they are one. And anyone who has been married for a long time will tell you if they are ever being truthful, that life is a lot easier and better when you have help and can help the one you love. I look forward to many years of getting to know my new niece and reminding my nephew of how happy he was at this moment (despite having to wear a tu
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I sorta moved far away from my family. I grew up in Rhode Island and moved to Pennsylvania when I got married 22 years ago. So I've missed alot of family stuff over the years. This past summer I was able to attend two weddings one for my niece and one for my nephew. My nephew Josh I may know about the best of all my nieces and nephews. I lived with him for the first few years of his life and though getting to know a kids that would leave his trucks and things in front of my door so I'd trip on them in the groggy mornings as I came out to watch Dumbo for the 437th time with him as he had his bottle and I had my cup of coffee is one thing, but getting to know him as a man is something else entirely. Josh and I have gotten together several times to play a game called lawn bowls as well so I feel we've become friends over the years. So when he asked if I would make pictures at his wedding it was an honor for me. His bride to be Debbie, who I met for the first time at my niece Sarah's wedding a few months earlier, is great. Very funny and she sort of has these little devilish expressions. The chose to get married in Mystic Ct. and have the reception at the aquarium. This made for something pretty unique, at least for me. We made several pictures near the Beluga Whale tank with one of the whales staying pretty curious most of the time we were there. It was a very nice day and great to take part in a family get together that I don't very often get to do. Photographs by Uncle Dick
Saegertown Cross Country Memory Mate design for 2012. I'm working everyday on trying to get everything done ASAP for everybody and everyday I catch up a little more. Though my schedule has made it difficult to keep up, I won't compromise the work just to get it done faster. I know in this instantaneous world we live in now everyone wants everything right away...my fear is if we compromise quality than we've really gone down the wrong path. I will catch up someday(I drink stress relieving teas now so I don't make myself ill with worry about the work) and I will continue to deliver a product that I am happy with. If I lose that, my own sense of pride in my work, I will just quit photography and probably .... well I just don't know what I would do if I wasn't striving to make something I'm proud of. SayerMotter Photographs and design by Richard Sayer
Someday I'm going to come up with a system of making these that allows me to do more and get them back to the client quicker. These take more time than the traditional memory mates. I can't ship off my images and have a lab do them and expect them to look like this. These take time and patience and I admit there are times I really wish I didn't decide that I wanted to be different than everyone else. (Those of you who know me well know that that is never an option for me.) I think the only way for me to make this system work is that I have to have enough business and charge enough to have this be the only thing I do. I toy with this idea sometimes, but then realize that everything else I do, teach art, tell stories in the local paper, make observations with my iphone camera etc... helps me be better at these....so I'm just not sure what I'm going to do. One thing is for sure I need to find a way to get these back to the customers quicker and I need to get caught up so I'm not working 7 days a week. I'm getting tired, but I do still like to make these! SayerMotter Photographs and design by Richard Sayer
Finding the form...in drawing we talk about how the effort we put into the work isn't so much to create a great work of art, but to find the form. This sometimes means the appearance of lights and darks that give the drawing a believable reading, sometimes it means try to discover something in our observation and applying the chalk to the paper that we didn't expect and sometimes it means finding the style for the particular piece. That is how I approach design. I never really have a firm idea in mind, just something to start with and then I sort of just let each piece tell me what to do next. Sometimes its in a tone or a color that really makes me see the logic of a finished design and other times its the pose of the individual or the team. Each one has to be different from the other so thats the goal, what haven't I done yet and can I make it work. I'm not always happy with what I end up with and sometimes I have to start from scratch, but when I get it right I feel pretty good about it. SayerMotter Photographs and design by Richard Sayer
When I'm asked to do a maternity shoot I always mention an idea I had years ago. It involves a heavy fog and this very old tree in Cochranton. I've yet to to get what I'm hoping for there, in fact most times we get up before sunrise and get there only to find no fog. I don't let that stop me from making pictures and where this tree is at an elementary school there are security lights. I decided to try to use these lights to make some pictures. I have this 14 mm wide angle lens with a bulbous glass that catches a lot of stray light and is a lens flare magnet. I really don't do well with flares as general rule so I usually avoid them. But this flare struck me as it pointed toward Allysin. I got down lower and let the flare go towards the belly. Not really sure what I was going to get out of it I just went with it and made a dozen or so frames all at a very slow shutter speed(hand held) and asking Allysin to be still. I got about a half dozen that worked. We had a pretty successful shoot over the next couple hours with these images setting the tone for the day. I finally finished toning her pictures today and thought I make thes SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer.
When I think of Stephen Sada I think there is a young man with the same kind of drive and passion for what he loves - baseball-as I have for what I love - photography. He plays all the time on several different teams. He never seems to take any time off. I wondered for a little bit about that, can we do something too much? My wife jokingly scolded me recently because I was out in the backyard with her having a glass of wine and I poll out my iphone and start making pictures. I can't seem to not think about or do something involving the creative process. So when I made this picture of Stephen -with my iPhone- I was really thinking about making a sort of epic journey type of an image that shows hope and commitment to his craft. I made several frames of this scene with my dslr as well but the iphone and hipstamatic app seemed to capture the scene best. SayerMotter Photography senior portrait by Richard Sayer.
A TV show, a glass and being up really late. I became fascinated with photographing through my drinking glass several years ago. I made frame after frame with my dslr and a 55mm micro lens. But it wasn't until I got my iphone that I was really able to capture anything with this technique. The lens is smaller and fits into the glass a lot better and really allows my to move the lens angle and glass angle around to compose. Its much more effective than the dslr ever was. I make 100's of images through my drinking glass. My favorites are when the suds from my beer cling to the side of the glass. This glass was just water so there were no suds on the sides. Photograph by Richard Sayer
Sometimes I will stumble upon something and just let it happen. It doesn't always happen the someway twice. Its funny how as you work on something it takes on a life of its own. This picture of Jacob seemed pretty cool just as it was(see similar frame below), then I tweaked and tweaked and then saw something i could do with the background and figured I'd give it a shot. This is what turned out. When I took on the many senior portraits this summer and fall I didn't think that the Saegertown seniors had a deadline for Oct. 19 for their yearbook. This has been pretty difficult to get everything done so they could be ready for the deadline, but if I'm right? Jacob was my last Panther senior to get his pictures done. I'll be sending he and his folks a link before the night is out to all his photos including these. Now onto the next batch of seniors with later deadlines and two weddings and a couple family portraits and .... oh yeah all those sports teams that I shot. I have some of these done, but so many more to do! SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer
I admit, I've been too tired to prioritize the featured picture of the day. For those of you know me I've been pretty busy with a lot of seniors, wedding and sports teams of late as well as part time at the newspaper and teaching two classes at Allgheny... so I've had to cut back somewhere. I was thinking today, actually I've been thinking about this for several days and even weeks, its a shame because I love to post a picture everyday and write a little about it. I've been posting iphone photos each day via instagram and that is fun, but this is where I really want to post. I feel blessed that so many people check out our little log everyday. My lack of posting isn't from lack of making pictures. On the contrary, I'm making too many each day that its hard to keep up. Today I was making these photos of Kassie and I knew I had to post one of them tonight. Usually I take a few with my cell phone to post, but I was wrapped up in doing these right that I failed to take out my phone to snap a frame or two. Kassie brought her trombone and I immediately remembered a picture taken by one of my photo idols, Bob Thayer of the Providence Journal who took a picture only my classmate Janine Rose playing her sax on a foggy day out in front of Scituate High School. I think I still have the clip somewhere even. I wanted to make a special photo today and this frame is one of the ones I'll be working up for Kassie to choose from for her senior portraits. I always want to find that one or two frames that are special for each client. And I always hope they like them as much as I like making them. SayerMotter Photograph by Richard Sayer
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