Senior portraits with horse and dog and even donkey

Friday night I had a great senior portrait session with Ceili (Kay-lee). She wanted some pictures with her horse and some pictures with her dog. As Ceili went to retrieve her horse, we discovered another rather entertaining pasture ornament. It was Cledus the mammoth jack donkey. I had my wife Patty as my assistant for the session. This is a picture of the mammoth jack donkey with my wife Patty. Ceili’s farm is sort of between Middletown Ohio and Oxford Ohio, but for equine portraits (including senior portraits with horses and other equestrian sport photography opportunities, I will travel up to several hours for a session including mid to northern Kentucky, mid to South East Indiana, and mid to South West Ohio)

Since I specialize in photographing horses, I have a little trick in my iphone. I have MP3 files of horses whinnying that I sometimes play to get horses’ ears up or to get their attention. When I played it for the donkey it got his attention, you could see the interest building, several big breaths of air and WOW that donkey can bray. We had to move away and cover our ears it was so loud. He was looking about trying to find where on earth those other horses were and he certainly knew how to make it known where he was.

Ceili was ready with Stormy Jazz and we found a good place where the corn and a barn provided some open shade and a good clean background. Ceili has a great smile.

We took various poses, but at one point I put my camera down to my side and Ceili took a breath and relaxed more. She also reached over and gave her horse a big hug. Fast reflexes and up the camera went and click, click, I got the shot. It seems that in almost every on-location session, there are several spontaneous moments. Keeping your eyes open and being ready for whatever comes your way can lead to some great portraits. Of course you have to know how to set up the poses too. When I do my portrait sessions, I am comfortable with my equipment, my assistant knows what I want from the lighting, so that allows me to focus on my subject (not just camera focus) and be looking for that natural smile and spontaneous moment.

Jean, Ceili’s mom also wanted some relaxed portraits without the horse.

Last we moved to the front yard and took some portraits of Ceili with Nemo. The family has several beautiful german shepherds.

Even though it was very hot, Ceili was able to make a couple changes of clothes and didn’t get too hot. Around here, it has been raining often even with the heat so everything has stayed green. If you want portraits with your horse, please don’t wait and call after everything dries up and turns brown. We may be lucky this summer and have green and pretty all season long. That will also make good for a very colorful fall. Please visit my web site if you want to have your portrait made with your horse at your farm or stable. http://www.photosbypdemott.com . You can also send me an email at peter@photosbypdemott.com or call me at 937-478-6222. For senior (highschool portraits) and for anyone else who loves their horse and wants some great images to remember them by, I come to your farm or stable and will travel some distance if needed (you’ll need to pay a bit more after 25 miles). Hope to hear from you soon.

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW…taking better pictures in snow

Snow is on its way to my area here near Dayton, Ohio. It seems from the news that there is lots of snow in lots of places all over the country. I thought I would put up a blog post to help people take better pictures in snow.

Here is the big problem with snow. Your camera light meter is tuned so that it will take an average scene that has some white, some gray, and some dark tones. It tries to find an average for the scene. Average gray is 18% gray and this is why photographers sometimes take meter readings from a “gray card”. But with a snowy scene, you don’t have grays and darker tones… everything is white. Therefore your camera will take all that white and try to average it down to a medium gray by underexposing the white snow. When your pictures come back you have gray snow. If the processor does a good job, they will try to make it white for you, but it is very under exposed and will be very grainy looking even if it is processed so that it looks white. In other words all your beautiful snowy pictures will be yucky and gross.

The solution is counter intuitive. Because everything is so white, you might think the way your camera does and think that you need to reduce the exposure. Actually what you need to do is add exposure. Most cameras have some sort of exposure compensation option. It shows as plus or minus exposure (+ or -). What you will do is to give the exposure a +1 or + 1 and a 1/2 compensation on the exposure. If you have an older camera you want your needle to be be plus one or one and a half stops.

Next you will want to check the histogram of some images. Most of the data needs to be toward the right (lightness area), but not completely to the right. The right side of your histogram is an illustration data showing the amount of white in the scene. It  is where the white portions of the scene would normally show up in and AVERAGE image. In an average image you would see some data on the left (darker portions of the scene), some data in the middle (the average gray portions of the scene) and some on the right (the whiter or brighter portions of the scene). If all your data is in a big hump in the middle of the histogram, your snow is being metered as average gray and not as white (you need more exposure to move the data to the white portion of the histogram). If it is completely against the right wall of your histogram then you are over exposing the snow and it will not have any detail (you have over exposed and you need to bring it back some). It will be white, but it will not seem visually pleasing because of the lack of detail.

So what do you do in bright snow? You tell your camera you want it brighter so that the bright white snow comes out nice a white rather than middle gray.

We just watched the news and schools are already showing delays for Thursday, January 7th even though the snow is not supposed to show up until late morning. Here is Dayton we so seldom get PRETTY snow. What we get is freezing rain, dirty and salty snow, and all that nasty stuff. Even when it comes down nice a pretty and white, it is usually wet and dirty snow in no time. Your opportunities to take pictures and portraits in snow are limited. Take advantage when you have the chance.

I mentioned on my FACEBOOK business page that I am offering a special if someone wants to do their senior portraits, family portraits, animals or perhaps their horse in snow. If you are in the Dayton area and you enjoy my style and artistry in portraiture, I would encourage you to become a fan of my business page and also become a FACEBOOK friend. You can also sign up to receive this blog via your email in-box by visiting my website home page.

Hoping you have the opportunity to enjoy some pretty white snow.

Kristen Lay’s senior portraits with her horse & her very large puppy/Fall colors

Kristen and her mom Michele have known me for several years. We have met several times at horse shows in the Dayton area. In addition, they attended the same church in Germantown that my son Jordan participated in. In an earlier post I said that Kristen had asked me about senior portraits this spring at one of the DLSC (Dayton Local Show Circuit) horse shows.

We talked about it each time we saw each other at the other horse shows. Michele and Kristen wanted to wait for the fall colors. When I arrived at her home in Miamisburg Michele pointed out one tree that was very vivid and bright. It was a perfect background for some of the images.

Kristen had a real workout trying to keep her horse’s head up out of the grass. I think that both Michele and Kristen doubted that we were going to get ANY good images from the session. I explained that it is always like this and that I have a very quick trigger finger. Even though the ears are perked forward for only moments, I would say, “got that one” to their surprise and we would move on to other poses. As a photographer with a specialty in equine photography (taking pictures of horses) Kristen and her mom chose the right person for her senior portraits with her horse.

When I was processing the images late into the night (some people don’t realize that after taking 200-300 images I have to sort out all the very best images and do my special processing on each image that I plan to show in the proofing ablum) I came across this image. It is definitely my favorite from the entire session. I made a Facebook version of this particular one and tagged Kristen with it on Facebook. Shortly, to my surprise, she replied with,” I know it’s just one image, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!  Now she has all the portraits to look at. I wonder if this one is still her favorite. To see all the proofs from this senior portrait session just click on this link: Kristen Lay’s Senior Portrait Session

Here are some other highlights from the session.

New Logo for Peter DeMott Photography

I am excited about the results of working with Zac Henne or Henne & Associates, LLC graphic designers. I met Zac through Rainmakers Networking group here in the Dayton area. It took us three design tries to come up with the new look. After the second group of ideas, I said I had to see something that made me say, “Ooooh, I like that” because I will have to live with this for a long time. Thanks, Zac, for your willingness to go to bat three times to come up with that “Ooooh, I like that” design for me.

I also changed the header of my web site to show my current work in senior portrait photography here in Dayton. I’d love to hear what you think about my new logo and the new header.

Here is the new header which shows some of my most current work. I will also include this as part of my signature file when sending emails.

I still do equine photography. That means if you are a senior high school student and you want portraits with your horse, I’m still here for you, but I am going back to my first love in photography which is people. Pet photography on location at your home or in a nearby park is something that I am also open to. All of my sessions are guaranteed so even though I don’t have samples of work with other pets right now, there is no risk to you if you like my style and want to give a pet session a try (Money back, no questions asked guarantee on the session fee if you are not happy for any reason or a reshoot of the session if you like).