As a journalist, we hate posed pictures. Oh, I know , we're starting a business that involves a lot of posing of people that we call clients, but the best pictures we always feel come from moments captured when people are not posing. I saw this group of cheerleaders posing for a coach and I ran right up to get a picture--of the picture being made--I was telling the story of a picture being made. When I got in close I just really liked how this elaborate pose of legs and arms and faked expressions the girls were giving their coach was all for not as the coach was really interested in their faces and was zoomed in tight. This is the part of life that I love to capture when I'm out looking for stories to tell. Its not a big story by any means, but it is about us and worth a picture---and maybe a little blurb in a blog(maybe even in the newspaper sometime next week.) Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
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One of the big cultural lessons I learned when I moved from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania back in 1990 was you can't get your car fixed on the first day of buck season. In fact I was laughed rather heartily when I asked for my car to be looked at on that day. Since then I have really learned how much apart of the culture hunting is. Especially when I moved out to Meadville in 93 and really began seeing how hunters prepare themselves for the season and, yes, take the day off of work, sometimes entire vacations are used up. At the paper I really don't enjoy taking pictures of deer kills brought in as trophies, but I'm not offended by it and, yes, I do know where my hamburger comes from and that death is involved, and not a nice clean death in that case either. A lot is made of a young hunter's first buck and it becomes a sense of family pride to see the young take to the woods and continue the family tradition. I no longer expect to get my car worked on the monday after ThanksgivinMeadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
I love John Lennon!! This photo is of me on Halloween. I dressed up like his wife, Yoko Ono. 29 years ago today, John Lennon was brutally murdered outside his Dakota Apartments in New York City. John Lennon gave to us a message of peace, hope and love. In Memory of John Winston Ono Lennon.
This photo was made during my family Thanksgiving dinner. I cannot wait for Christmas dinner!!!
Photo by: Harmony Motter I started at The Meadville Tribune over 12 years ago. Normally a newspaper the size of the Tribune is what they call a stepping stone paper for photographers and young reporters. I've never really wanted to leave. And its because of stuff like this picture above and the stories like this. No its not a picture I'll include in a portfolio of my life's work, but it was really cool none-the-less. We got a call from the local theater that someone came in and was going to propose to his girlfriend, were we interested. Our weekend editor Kevin Hart is a smart man. He said yes and sent me and Pete Chiodo over to get the story. This is the sort of community journalism that keeps me very excited about my job. We get to share in our neighbors lives. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
Julia Adams is a young girl with a very grown-up attitude about life. Her Spanish teacher's son Ben has Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, the same type of cancer her great great father died from. Even though this form of cancer is one of the more highly treatable cancers, it needs to be taken care of and doing so is expensive. Adams decided to do what she could to help so she held a dance. "It was a lot of work but it was wroth it," she said. "To see all these people come out to help...it really warms your heart."
One of the ways Adams used to raise the nearlt $1,100 was to hold a dollar dance where everyone paid a dollar to have a dance with Ben. Adams got the second dance as shown above. Meadville Tribune photo by Richard Sayer I photographed Miss Crawford County, Brittany Samler in the Fall with her brother, Beau. Brittany's platform is on 'Autism Awareness', due to the fact that her brother is living with Autism. Towards the end of the shoot, Brittany started to show Beau how to be 'cool' and 'pop his collar.' She said, "yeah Beau, you're cool!" He looks pretty cool to me.
Photograph By: Harmony Motter Every once in awhile, I am a lucky girl. On this particular day luck was on my side. I had the opportunity to stand next to Boston Red Sox Center Fielder/Left Fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury. He was in Westbrook, Maine showing off the World Series Trophy. I was shooting for Current Publishing Newspapers. Let me just say....he was nice to stand next to.
Photograph By: Harmony Motter Miss Meadville Outstanding Teen first runner-up, Libby Hornstein polishes off her make-up prior to the pageant. I liked her face in the mirror.
Photograph By: Harmony Motter During Jr. Miss Meadville 2008's last walk slides from her year as queen were project on a screen behind her. This provided an opportunity to to use an old compositional or pictorial device called a picture within a picture. With the screen on and off throughout the entire pageant many more opportunities arose for me to use this device. Photograph by Richard Sayer
To see more of these images visit http://sayermotterphotography.weebly.com/miss-meadville-area-pageant-112809.html or http://sayermotterphotography.zenfolio.com/ |