I've been thinking a lot about photography today(surprise huh?). How as a society we think about photography in different ways depending on what we want out of it. We grew, many of us, going to traditional portrait studios in our finest cloths all made up and looking good to then sit in front of a background to have our photographs made. Think about this for a minute. We go into someone else's place to sit in front of a background that we probably haven't seen before--or at least not since the last time we had our picture taken and we are dressed up like we only do for weddings, funeral and the occasional business party ---we do all of this in order to have our 'portrait' done. Is that who we are? As we're starting to navigate our way in this photographic business world we are embracing many things, including traditional portraits with backgrounds and lights. We are trying to learn how to do this at a very high level in order to serve our clients in what their needs are. But I couldn't help but think how we should really be fighting more and more for real portraiture--pictures of people as they are--true to the world and true to their legacy. I know the best portraits are those where you can see the honesty in the depiction---I know this. I've taken a couple of these over the years working at the paper. The funny thing is, when we do this sort of honest depiction for our clients we rarely ever sell them that picture. They more often choose the one closest to that picture-style we grew up with. I guess thats the culture of photography, and one we'll try our best to change I hope. None of this has anything to do with the picture above, I just thought I captured a nice blocked shot at the game tonight. Meadville Tribune photograph by Richard Sayer