Peaks Island, Maine... Day #2

Today was really about appreciating the coast of Maine.  I first visited Maine when I was 20 years-old and since then have spent a considerable about of time here.  It still remains one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.  
Seaweed is visible in the early morning while the tide is out. Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth.
Beach stones are fun to look at, fun to hold, fun to collect and free for the taking.   If anyone is really interested in learning more about beach stones, I recommend a book called 'Beach Stones.'  It is written by Margaret Carruthers  with photographs by Josie Iselin.  It's a neat guide to use while exploring the rocky coast.  A quote that I pulled from the book..."For most stones, the beach is just the latest stop on a journey that began eons ago."
Photos By: Harmony Motter
Add Comment
 
 
Peaks Island is the most popular island in Casco Bay, Maine. It is part of the city of Portland and is approximately 3 miles from downtown. The island became a popular summer destination in the late 19th century, when it was known as the Coney Island of Maine, home to hotels, cottages, theaters, and amusement parks. Peaks Island is home to 843 year round residents, but in the summer its population swells up to 6,000.

Peaks Island, Maine Day #1

There is something special about waking up on Peaks Island.  The light arrives earlier than what I am used to.  I can smell the salt in the air and I hear the first sounds of the Casco Bay ferry departing for Portland. I love it here!
First sights upon arriving on the Casco Bay Ferry.
Island flowers.
A lobster trap sits in the sand after washing a shore from the ocean.  
Fish on ice at the Harbor Fish Market in Portland, Maine.  
Phots By: Harmony Motter
Add Comment
 
First Kiss 05/13/2012
 
Sarah and Mark McKeever joined together in marriage on 5/12/12. Here is their first kiss as husband and wife. Photograph by Richard Sayer, proud uncle.
1 Comment
 
 
"This is the uncle we warned Mitchell about!" I laughed when my niece Sarah introduced me to her husband to be on Friday night. Mitchell was the photographer they hired to do the wedding. I'm not comfortable in crowds or during ceremonies so I was planning to come and shoot pictures so Sarah and Mark could have extra shots and something maybe the other photographer wasn't able to get. I always like seeing pictures other people take at weddings--acknowledging those pictures are great additions to their album. The wedding photographer can't capture everything. The best he or she can do is document the moments that together tell the story in a beautiful way. So Mitchell was 'warned' that I'd be there with my camera and he was very cool about it. We even talked about gadgets and styles of photographs a bit as well. So I wasn't really making the pictures for their album, but supplements perhaps or maybe a second little album off to the side of their official one. It was fun to be with my family, but also do what I do. I am a fish out of water at weddings if I'm not working, so this was a great way for me to able to enjoy my niece's wedding--working, but totally unofficial! She is a great beautiful young woman who has found a nice young man. It will be exciting to watch their marriage grow! Photographs by Richard 'Uncle Dick' Sayer. 
PS by the way--those pictures that others take--so far the best picture I've seen from the wedding my 18 year old(who I really thought couldn't possibly be more than 14 or 15-- I'm getting old) niece  Rebecca took of Sarah and her dad walking down the aisle. It was a beautiful photo captured with a nice panning blur and great light!!!!!! I might need an assistant at Josh's wedding Becca!!!
pps-these are some cell phone pics--the higher quality photos will come later.
ppps... I just got this not on facebook from Becca...'Uh oh.. Just looked again, unfortunately I can't take credit. Jeff took that and sent it to me by request. Sorry for false advertising!' She is great! And insert Jeff Arscott's name above!
Add Comment
 
 
One thing that has always helped me get better as a photographer is to constantly study photographs. I do this daily--looking up really great people who are the best in their craft. When I was in my young 20 I was exposed to some of the photographs of Lee Friedlander. One in particular was this self portrait taken in a car mirror. I think at the time I wondered how the hell this picture and this photographer came to be considered someone we need to study. But like most things with me, the work kept knawin at me and over the years I've looked more and more of his work up. He is now one of the people I think of as a true influence on my work--a part of my work I'm still trying to learn how to do. This weekend I had to travel to the other side of the state for my niece's wedding. I had these sort of hopes to take my time and go through some towns and make sort of a travel log. Well this is a big state and traveling isn't my thing so this notion turned into trying to stay awake at the wheel and getting there in time to help pick people up and to see my parents who I really haven't seen in a couple years. But in the beginning I was thinking about Friedlander and the way he composed and as I waited at a couple lights in Franklin Pa. I made a couple of homages to him. Still nowhere near as cool as his work--I've still got a lot of learning to do! Photograph by Richard Sayer.
1 Comment
 
 
I had a meeting with a student at Allegheny College and as I was leaving i saw this great light and shadow coming from th skylights in the campus center--I knew I wanted to make a picture. I made a neat frame of just the shapes in color and all I dould hear inside my head was our old mantra from photo school--'needs a person it!' I didn't really have any time--sometimes you have to wait a long time for something to happen just right. But I thought I wanted the picture enough to dedicate at least a little time to is. So I guess I spent about 10 minutes and made about 6 frames--this being my favorite. I was thinking this sort of picture is a black and white, but I was trying out new lens/filter combos on my hipstamatic and happened to have color in. In this case I think I'm glad I didn't change it, I like the secondary subject of the chair and in color this is more of a player than in black and white. I felt this was an example of many thing things I've discussed with my classes over the years--looking for light, using graphic patterns to set up the composition, try to harmonize your colors, create secondary impacts, have an action and most importantly--get a person in there. We lose fact that its a communication sometimes--and if we are communicating to people--giving human context is important--adds dimension and story. We have a neat light and design, but adding person adds story--who is it, where is he going, what is he doing etc..... We can make this stuff up and if really interested--even find out if its important to do so. Photograph by Richard Sayer
Add Comment
 
 
I had an amateur moment the other day. I had set up my camera for the Saegertown baseball shoot and was ready to go. But when I went to take my first picture nothing happened. The battery had died. I had forgotten that these cameras reset themselves to the last settings you used to take a picture before the battery died. So everything I did, didn't turn out. My first player was Austin Scere and I made his picture. On the second player I remembered that I wanted to take a picture with my cell phoe to for a possible idea. So I called him back. He had to put his Jersey back on. Then I shot a few players before I realized my camera wasn't set right and the pictures just wouldn't work. So I had to photograph the three players again. Austin had already started practicing his pitching and was out of uniform again. "Scere's gonna kill me,' I said, 'but I need him one more time.' I saw his reaction and at that moment I realized why people hate photographers...sometimes we're a pain in the....... you know what. But in this case if I didn't bug him then, I would have to call him up and bug him another time because that first shot didn't turn out. So after all that I started to play around with those iphone pictures using an app that makes things look like they were sketched. I might even work these into the design of the memory mate somehow, but for today I figured I'd make these the features pictures of the day. SayerMotter iphone photographs manipulated by and app by Richard Sayer.

Click to enlarge the pictures below!
2 Comments
 
 
One of the things I've been liking about this iphone business is the idea of the photo sketch. I have made a lot of work over the years and i look at it from time to time and think about how I would do it differently or how I would expand on the idea. The iphone and hipstamatic are allowing me to make new pictures out of these old pictures--sometimes they work--sometimes they don't. I have this picture I made a few years ago for a show I had with Harmony Motter. We took 200 feet of black and white film and shot it. No real plan, just...lets see what we can make and then have a show. I began to experiment with holding up my old photographs to light bulbs and re-photographing them. They transformed into these images with darker borders and vignetting....sort like what some of the lens/film choices with hipstamatic accomplish. I also began sandwiching two photographs together. I did most of this in a very crude way by just holding them with my left hand up to the light while taking the picture with my right hand using a nikon FM2 with 55mm micro lens...oh and holding my breath because the shutter speeds seldom ever got above 15th of sec. After awhile I got a tripod out, but this was even more difficult to use to get what I was hoping to. So this image was made of a picture I took in 1986  on film and another picture I took in 1995 or 6 also on film. Then retaken in 2003 or 4 on film and then rephotographed again in April 2012 with an iphone. I may try to do this again with a different lens/film choice in the app. Photograph by Richard Sayer
Add Comment
 
Invitation cards 05/07/2012
 
Somedays I'm a photographer and I don't want to design anything, I just want to shoot pictures and have them stand on their own. The journalist in me says shoot and don't alter it--it is what it is. But then there is that painter side of me where I make pictures and in that world anything goes. In painting and in commercial work its not--'it is what it is.' and thats the end all. We have an obligation in painting to make everything make sense -- we can change anything. In client work its a mix of giving of a talent to a point, but then listening to the needs of the client. This goes well when the client trusts you and I listen well enough to get what they need--and then hopefully surprise them further by hopefully making it better than they expected. I've designed a few graduation invitations the last couple years and each time I take the photos I'm asked to work with and try to 'find the design.' I could work for weeks and weeks on designs and come up with a dozen or so--but usually  that isn't an option and I don't think any client want to pay for the hours put in to do that. So usually I just sort of listen and look closely at my client and their family and sorta take a stab at what I think will work. Jaclyn wanted to take a picture with this lily and said something about them being her sister's favorite flower or that her sister had them in her wedding--some direct connection with her sister and family so I knew right away that I wanted this to be the featured picture and her soccer picture the accent picture. Hopefully everyone she sends them too likes them and goes to her party with great graduation presents for her. SayerMotter Photographs and design by Richard Sayer.
Add Comment
 
Memory 05/06/2012
 
If you have read this featured pic blog over the last month or so you've heard me mention having troubles with my computer. It is functioning ok--just not enough memory for the amount of work I'm doing these days. I've been thinking about memory a lot late. As we get older we joke about it being the first thing to go...what I think it is is that the older we get the more we have competing with memory. We sorta do the same thing in our minds--we store and store and store. Without something to trigger the memories they might stay deep inside our minds for a very long time. Then I was thinking about these things dubbed 'Memory Mates' and realized that these are just that--future triggers to those memories they are making on the fields and courts. 30 years from now some of these kids will be my age now and looking at this picture they might say--whatever happened to that kid. Nowadays with facebook we probably keep in touch better than my generation did(at least before we all began looking each other up to see who still has hair and who gained a lot of weight and who is getting called grampa now and who struck it rich and might lend us a couple bucks!!!! etc....). With computer memory its an easy--though time eating and potentially frustrating fix--we buy more space, burn more discs, save to external servers and pray that they are all properly saved before deleting them off our computer. Our minds aren't quite that easy! I am making progress Saegertown Spring Volleyball!!! Slow, but they are coming I promise! I think my computer has the space I need to actually get your orders together and if I don't get unexpectly swamped with life again this week I hope to get your orders placed!! SayerMotter photographs and design by Richard Sayer. I'm making pot after pot of coffee!
Add Comment