A telephoto zoom and kids / I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE natural smiles.

I have to say that I have always liked taking pictures of people with a telephoto lens. It is particularly great for taking pictures of kids with completely natural expressions. In this particular portrait I was at a competitive trail ride near Dayton during the vet check portion of the ride. This young rider is the son of Shannon Loomis. All her children are quite cute and this young man was waiting his turn to show his horse to the vet at the finish of the ride. Natural smile come so easily to young children when they are unaware of the camera.

When I do a kids portrait session there is nothing that can frustrate me more than a parent telling their child to smile. Sometimes this results in a completely unnatural pasted on smile that is unappealing. It is not the smile that comes from delight or finding something funny. It ends up being a false representation of the person. There are two things that can help with this. First it is important to instruct the parents that they may not instruct there children during the session. No instructions like, “Not that smile…you know the smile we want.” There is nothing that will cause a child not to relax more than a parent making them feel selfconscious about how they look or what they are doing.

And second I have had good success doing a “candid” session where the parent and the child play together and I tell the parent to just pretend they are alone and to just forget about me. With the telephoto lens I can walk about looking for those natural moments without being right there close to the action. I can be 15 to 20 feet away like I was with this portrait. As I have posted before (this blog appears on my website and on my facebook accounts) sometimes my best images of children occur in the first few moments or the very last moments of a session either before the children figure out that I am photographing or after we announce that we are all finished. Of course all these things depend on the age of the child.

Here is the young boy I mentioned in the paragraphs above – just too cute. One thing that you will notice is that in all competitive trail rides and endurance rides junior riders are required to wear protective riding helmets. In addition Shannon has protective riding vests on each of her children when they participate in these events together.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Natural smiles.

This portrait was taken from 20 feet away using a 70-200 mm telephoto zoom lens using available light.

Become a Friend or a Fan or both on Facebook

I have a friend page on Facebook (Peter DeMott) and I have my business page on Facebook (Peter DeMott Photography) which is called a Page. With my regular facebook you can become a friend (as a friend I can tag pictures of you and they appear on your wall).

On my business Page you become a fan and I can send you promotions, discounts, coupons, and seasonal specials and events. I will be posting seasonal specials and discounts on my fan page from time to time along with samples of my work. If you become a fan, these specials will post directly to your Newsfeed or perhaps your wall, I’m not really sure. In either case that’s pretty cool because it gives me a way to offer specials to those who have an interest in my photography.

I have facebook friends all over the country and the world through my connections to photographers and others that I have gotten to know. It’s fun to share my photography with other photographers that I have “friended” through seminars and other forums.

I also do a lot of photography at my church, Fairhaven Christian Missionary Alliance Church on Whipp Rd in Centerville Ohio, and I like to post photo albums on my facebook friends account to share those. Facebook has been a great way to get to know people in this very large and growing church.

Last of all, I am learning more about networking in my advertising sales career here in the Dayton area. Part of that is to really get to know folks on a more personal level and I ask business friends to “friend me” on facebook so that I can get to know them better.

Back to my photography business facebook fan page. Right now I am offering a year end limited time discount to all my fans. This offer is for print purchases, not sessions. As my fan list expands I will continue to make limited time offers using the new coupon feature of the online company that prints my portraits. When I do a portrait session my clients can view their portrait proofs online and order photographic prints, canvas prints that look like works of art, and they can even order products like t-shirts, and various other items. Now that I have a coupon feature this sounds like a perfect thing to use to the benefit of my valued customers through the fan page on facebook.

If you have an interest my my photography and would like to join my photography business fan page just go here and click on the “Become a Fan” button: Peter DeMott Photography

Thanks, Peter DeMott

Environmental Family Portraits at Christmas

Patty and I and our family had a lovely time with Pam and Andy and their family Christmas day. In the morning we opened presents at home with our kids here in the Dayton area, then we drove to the Cleveland area first to visit my wife’s parents who are currently both in the hospital. After our visit, we went to Pam and Andy’s (Pam is my wife Patty’s older sister) for a beautiful visit and dinner. But, before dinner they had asked if I would bring my camera and take some family portraits for them.

I think the hint of Christmas is a wonderful way to be in the mood for Christmas year round. Since the portraits were taken in their own home, they will also have a more special meaning. I also took some in their formal family room without Christmas decorations showing.

I showed them a stretched canvas print that I had made for one of my senior high school student portraits so they could see what it might look like as a canvas print. It can make portraits like these into wonderful works of art. I also like to show samples so that people can understand size a little better. The canvas print that I showed them was 16×24 which is a nice starter size for framed display on a wall. It is very common for people to think that an 8×10 or 11×14 is a large wall portrait, but those are considered more for desk and bookcase display and usually look very small once held up to a wall. I even lend various sized print samples to people to allow them to hold them up where they intend of making their display so that they can see how various sizes appear. It is not something that you can do from memory. It’s kind of like bringing paint samples back from the store to hold up against various pieces of furniture to make sure they compliment what you already have.

This is Pam and Andy.

This is their lovely family.

The other images from the session can be seen here: Pam & Andy Family Portraits

What do you do if someone “hates” to have their portrait taken

As a photographer here in Ohio doing senior portraits, equine portraits of horse owners with their horses, and children and family portraits I have found a couple of things helpful in making people more relaxed in front of the camera.

1) Most of my work is location photography so I am at a park or home or stable chosen by the person I am photographing. Whenever I feel that someone is becoming uncomfortable we change up what we are doing. In a park, we walk to another location. At a stable we do  some walking shots with the horse and owner. Moving around is a great way to help people feel less confined and stiff.

2) As I am shooting, I look at the back of the camera and comment about how great the person looks, and that I am getting some great stuff. These are honest comments based on the fact that I have captured some great images with relaxed smiles. Sometimes it’s good to ask them for “no smiles for now” and that takes the pressure off them trying to be so perfect, then a little joking and on comes that perfect relaxed smile.

3) Working on location I shoot with a long lens. I have a 70-200mm F2.8 lens that is my work horse. Because I am not in a confined space of a studio I can shoot from a very comfortable distance of 15 – 25 feet away.

4) Rather than move people around much, many times I demonstrate the approximate pose that I want them to take. Then I say can you do that for me? If it seems awkward I suggest that they strike a pose that feels comfortable to them, then I can fix little things with some simple instructions.

5) Sometimes a little activity can take a persons mind off having their picture taken. At the PPSO picnic we asked this young lady to sit on the swing and just relax and do whatever she wanted. As I was shooting, I was commenting on the back of my camera. The combination of the distraction of the swing and the frequent comments about how lovely the pictures were turning out created an atmosphere where she could be herself, have fun, and provide us with great portraits.

6) I like to shoot portraits at my slow motor drive speed and fire off several shots in a row when expressions are changing naturally. Later I can pick out the images that, to me most accurately depict the persons natural expressions.

HELP PORTRAIT Dayton was fun and a great learning experience for all involved

December 19th was the date for HELP PORTRAIT Dayton. As this was the first time for Dayton and the rest of the country, we had no idea of how many people might show up. Would we be completely overwhelmed? Would there be people waiting out the doors or would we be very slow. As it turned out, we were very slow until after 12 noon. So after three backdrops and light set-ups were in place, and tested we sat about for a while wondering what to do.

After about an hour, we just started to play. First we took a group shot with someone’s fisheye lens:

This is everyone that was there at the time including helpers, photographers, make-up and friends.

I took some more portraits for fun trying out the light set-up and thinking about what I would need to set up the same sort of portrait lighting set up in my country barn studio in the future. We had a white seamless paper background and two black backgrounds. At about noon people started coming in for portrait sessions. First one family, then a couple more and then several more. We all had great fun creating and GIVING the portraits away with no payment expected whatsoever.  One father grabbed Jordan Begley as he was about the leave, “Hey, I want to thank you folks for doing this, this is our first family portrait….we’ve never had one and this means a lot.”  Jordan came over and shared his conversation with me saying that the oldest boy in the family was 9 and he was so surprised and touched by the conversation.

Well as it turned out we had about, I think 50+ people representing 6-8 different families and since we were by no means swamped, we were able to come up with variations and sub-group portraits of each family. But, the originator of this event suggested that we not publish actual families from the event to respect their privacy.

The following images are portraits of photographers and friends helping at the event before actual families started showing up. The beginnings of some good friendships were started and everyone helped everyone else try out various lighting set-ups and learn more about photography together. Some of us were outside of our comfort zones and it was a great experience for all. THANKS everyone who helped and for all the sharing of knowledge at the event.

HELP PORTRAIT makes national news on CNN

It was exciting to see that HELP PORTRAIT made national news last Sunday. Here in Dayton we delayed our event because several of the photographers had conflicts on 12/12/09. So the HELP PORTRAIT event for Dayton is this weekend 12/19/09 from 10-2 at the Moraine Medows Elementary School, 2600 Holman Street, in Moraine OHIO 45439.

Here is a online video of the news coverage from CNN – HELP PORTRAIT IN THE NEWS

If you know someone who might not be able to afford a portrait for whatever reason, you are welcome to bring them to this event. Military pending a deployment, unemployed, single moms, sickness… whatever. I have a pdf flyer that I can email to you to give out as well. Just email me at peter@photosbydpemott.com and ask for the HELP PORTRAIT flyer.

We will be reporting back to the founder of the event how things go, but they reported this so far from the main date for the event 12/12/09. Events occurred all over the world. We will represent a very tiny part of this here in Dayton this Saturday. If you would like to become involved you can visit our facebook group for the Dayton event here: HELP PORTRAIT Dayton

“In case you are wondering, here are some statistics we are tracking to-date:

• 17,200+ pictures taken
• 1400+ photographers
• 2720+ volunteers

And this is with only 43% of locations reporting.”

Photography and portraits can be powerful in the lives of people. You can be a part of giving to others through photography. Watch the video, come and volunteer, or perhaps bring / invite someone and take your time to help them get there.

There are no strings attached.

Leading a Photographic Life, learning to live a creative life.

I was again listening to a podcast called The Candid Frame by Ibarionex Experello (available free on iTunes) and for the 12/6/09 episode there was an interview with Chase Jarvis. Chase is a well known younger photographer who has created quite a buzz with his discussion of the BEST CAMERA. The best camera being the one you have WITH YOU. I believe he has an iPhone app called BEST CAMERA and a blog and perhaps a book about this idea as well. He is also a very well know commercial / advertising photographer with many national and international clients.

In any case the discussion was about leading a photographic life and learning to live a creative life. It made me want to look over some pictures that I have taken and just share them here. I decided to look through my 500 GB drive and look at some memorable images and share them here. These are all recent images when you consider that I have been an avid photographer since I was in Jr. High School many, many, many years ago. So, since I have not taken any pictures for a couple weeks, here goes.

First, here is a picture of my home in winter. I’ve been thinking about it more as I think more about my country barn photography studio. Right now I don’t have a studio, but when we built our new horse barn we build in a large room and upstairs room in it so that some day I could make it into a portrait studio. It’s just not as fun right now to take portraits of people when the trees are bare, the grass is brown, and it is 16 degrees outside. With a studio I could take indoor studio portraits and shoot year round.

When I was in Jr. High School and High School I carried my camera everywhere I went. Now I carry my camera much less, but when I do the opportunities abound for a creative life. Chase’s challenge was to take pictures everywhere and use the camera you have, your cell phone camera. Almost everyone has a cell phone camera now and it is a matter of taking the initiative to get it out and use it where ever you are. I thought this was an interesting challenge and it just made me think of memorable images and pictures that would never have happened had I not had my camera with me. These next images were not taken with my cell phone camera, but they are memorable images from the recent past which I thought I would share.

The next four images are from the Peace Point Endurance Ride. The first image is in the morning before the endurance ride started. The photo of the children became the cover image for ENDURANCE NEWS, the publication of the American Endurance News Conference. The other is a point in the day when the water was reflecting the riders as they entered the river first to let the horses drink, then to cross past me as they continued to compete. One rider was using a sponge to cool her horse. She had great technique as she would drop the sponge in the water and bring it back up into her hand using a string.

The next three images are from two different vacations that Patty and I have taken in the past several years. They represent the beautiful places and the beautiful people we have encountered. It seems to me that I see many beautiful people and places where ever I go, however on vacation I make a particular point of recording the images. These make me think that I should be wearing my camera more often the way I used to when I was young. One picture is of a dance demonstration. Another is the wonderful place we stayed. and last is a fun exchange with a street vendor down the beach from where we were. It was fun to see this man and my wife interact as she expressed and interest in some of his wears.

I hope you enjoyed my little visual vacation. Pictures and portraits can bring back strong memories. I think that is why I enjoy taking pictures and portraits so much. This podcast challenged me to keep my camera more handy and if it is not available to use my iPhone to record images. It also made me want to start work on my country barn photography studio soon so that I can lead a photographic life, a life of creativity.