Every year we do a back to school picture. Last year I got one of my favorite photos of the year, I thought about trying to duplicate it, but decided to not even try. I first shot some frame of just the mirror before seeing the other bus in the background. I'm glad I did see it because the mirror shots weren't really doing it for me and I feared they'd be just a little soft. Pulling out wider really made the picture more dynamic and even a little sharper. The bus actually started pulling away and I only managed to get two frames off. Meadville Tribune photographs by Richard Sayer
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Oops! missed a day. So I'll post two today. St. John's Church of God on Mercer Pike will be turning 170 I believe this year. Today Pete Chiodo and I went out to the church to chat with the Rev. and a few of the parishioners. This gentleman's name is Paul Bean, one of the oldest members. He was talking with Pete inside the church near the big stained glass window that is estimated at more than 100 years old. I wanted to get the church and its people in the photo, but as most photographers know--the light in these old churches doesn't make it easy. I chose this silhouette idea in hopes to show case the window. It was tough exposure, pure silhouetting Mr. Bean and keeping good saturated color in the window glass wasn't working--Bean's profile got lost. So I ended up trying to compromise by slightly over-exposing the window hoping to keep the detail. I lost some of the beautiful saturated color and some areas washed but overall I wasn't totally unthrilled with the result. I may try re-toning it tomorrow with fresh eyes. This was a long hot day. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer
The above photograph is by Kevin Carter taken in the late 80's or early 90's. I remember this picture coming out and getting put on the front pages of newspapers across the world. It was haunting then and it still is today. I use this photograph in class discussions about what it means to be a human and what it means to be a journalist and how, by keeping those two ideals separated in thought, we perhaps get closer to how much they are the same. In order for a journalist to serve humanity, they must document the world as they see it, not as they arrange it to be. The outcry against the photographer for taking this picture was great, I won't go into all the details, google Kevin Carter and you'll be able to read hundreds of articles on this picture alone, but the affect on the world outreach was even greater after this picture was published. If nothing else this is a testament to what journalism does best, shows us things about the world that we don't really want to see, but perhaps we should see them anyway.
I know this picture is a little off our normal picture a day that we take, but I'm back getting ready to teach class after class and this is something that has stirred good debate and discussion in class and I thought I'd toss it out to our regular readers too. Feel free to comment and or discuss with others. Our current path of letting newspapers die threatens the long term impact that images such as this can have and worse threatens that no one will be given the task or take upon themselves the task of even making these sorts of images. Tomorrow morning at the crack of nine I get back into the classroom and begin to once again talk about what I love to do--make art, photograph things, document stories and work through the problems of visual communication. Over my years I've tried several forms of image making, some more successful than others. Even though my degrees are in painting and drawing, probably my least successful work have been done in those mediums. Photography seems to be my way, not that I find that easy either, but I seem to see and record better than I can get my mind to make my awkward hands and arms do what I want them to. So when I began using photography, the computer and my ability to see shapes and colors and forms to piece together images in a similar way that I was making painting then I began to see another way for me to communicate with paint and charcoal, by photographing them and using their bits and pieces to make new pieces. Changing their scale and isolating small parts of the created works I could move from thought to thought. I even found that photographing my palate was equally rewarding. So now tomorrow I get to begin talking to students just starting out in the image making process about how they can use all that they learn to create. And more you get into it--the more you will discover that there are no ends to what you can create. Image by Richard Sayer
For those of you who don't know, Harmony and I are photographers for The Meadville Tribune as well as owners of SayerMotter Photography. This past week was the Crawford County Fair. Those of us who have covered the fair for a long time affectionately call it 'hell week!' We have to run around a lot to get to as many different things as we can. Truth is, I don't love the fair, but I do love the stories we find there. Some are subtle like Harmony's photo of a young girl looking into the face of a goat as she scratches the goats chin. Other stories are poignant like Harmony's photo of a girl who just won a championship prize with her dairy cow and instead of showing elation, shared her sadness of losing a dear friend, Bob Morrell earlier in the year with the Morrell family and the follow-up picture a couple days later that I witnessed of Morrell's daughter looking into heaven after her cow was named Supreme Champion. Throw in some people eating fair food, a few horses and the mainstage acts and you can see what we do like about covering the fair. Click on the picture above and be taken to The Meadville Tribune website to see some of the images we captured this week in two different slideshows. And many more photos can be viewed at meadvilletribune.com and tribphotos
Meadville Tribune photo by Richard Sayer I wasn't feeling very well at the fair tonight and sorta felt like I just needed to survive it rather than work it. I did take a couple photographs that I liked, but I didn't have the energy to post them and I decided to come home. Earlier in the week I failed to post a picture and that just bothered me, so I dug one from the not so long ago archives, a picture of BreAnn that I took in the back room of Ben Care's studio. Its one of those photos I don't know what to do with. I like it, but what body of work does it fall into and does it really represent the subject? BreAnn is a beautiful and talented artist, so maybe it is a just portrait, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I do like the photo though. SayerMotter photograph by Richard Sayer
Tomorrow if all goes well I'll have something from the last day of the fair 2010---wooohooo! I'll admit, I still don't really know what the judges are looking for when they judge cows, but I do know a little something about story telling and photography. Earlier this week Harmony took a picture of a reaction and a hug. The emotion of that picture was for the loss of a friend and a family member. Today I was able to witness and photograph a follow up of sorts to that story. The Morrell family, and apparently the entire Crawford County Dairy family lost one of its own this past year in Bob Morrell. Morrell had shown and won several Supreme Champion cows over the year and today his daughter Heather showed a Holstein that was named Supreme Champion. Upon hearing her cow had won she looked up into the heavens for a moment and then I watched her try to hold herself together by biting her lip and blowing out a couple of breaths to keep from crying. It is quite a thing to witness and in a small way share in these moments with people we cover. It is obvious from seeing things this week that not only the Morrell family lost one of its own, but so many others did too. I even felt a bit of the loss. I had photographed a few of Bob Morrell's Supreme Champion cows and Bob too. I remember getting just a bit of him last year when one of his cows won yet again and he entered from the side of my frame to congratulate the gentleman who showed the cow. And photographing Heather today was a beautiful thing for me. I have taken Heather's picture many times over the years, I don't know if she has liked any of them, but I've always felt that I've been trying to tell a story with them and todays story was, for me, the most important picture I've taken of her. Her looking up to me showed her love and sadness of loss of her dad. That is a tribute to him and I'm honored to have witnessed it. Meadville Tribune Photograph by Richard Sayer
This is a photo illustration of my nieces and nephews. Celebrating the end of Summer, we all hung out at a local park this afternoon. It was a great time that consisted of decorating the public sidewalks with sidewalk chalk, eating Subway sandwiches on a blanket, tossing pennies into a fountain with the hopes that all of our wishes will come true and laughing and running. I love these little people!
Photo By: Harmony Motter After winning the Supreme 4-H Dairy Champion award Tuesday afternoon in the Youth Show Arena at the annual Crawford County Fair, Courtney Carey, 16 of Titusville, embraces Candy Morrell, of Meadville. Morrell’s husband, Cochranton dairy legend Bob Morrell was killed in July as a result of a traffic accident. Mr. Morrell had been showing cattle at the Crawford County Fair for over 40 years. “He was like another dad to me.” “I just really looked up to him,” says Carey of Morrell. Meadville Tribune Photo By: Harmony Motter My kind of picture....... When I came into the photo department of The Meadville Tribune Harmony Motter told me how she had taken her 'kind of photo' today(the one up top of this post.) This was great to hear and her excitement really was energizing. As I was struggling to stop the fast paced action of the FMX series event at the fair those words came into my head - my 'kind of photo!' So instead of trying to do something nearly impossible with the waning light, I calmed down and looked for my kind of photo and there it was. At first I thought this kid was picking his nose and I shot that, but getting back and looking closely it was more of a scratch and he was looking at me, so this photo seemed more of a moment unaffected by my being there. After I got this frame all of a sudden I was finding myself stopping the action--good things make other good thing happen. Meadville Tribune photo by Richard Sayer
I was shooting photos at the Crawford County Fair today for the Meadville Tribune. I found these little piglets nursing on their mother and took like 100 photos of them. They were super cute and I really like their tiny, curly tails. Meadville Tribune Photo By: Harmony Motter
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