Photographing the times of our lives, families, friends, birthdays, gatherings…and more
On Saturday my wife and I went to Marshallville, Ohio to visit with her brother Mike and Sister-in-law Kathy. It was Kathy’s birthday and at the same time the Marshallville “history days” or some such celibration. Patty’s dad was there, her sister Pam, and Kathy’s parents were there too. There was a hot-rod show and I caught the last tractor pull of the afternoon. It was a good day.
The portraits below started with my asking to take a portrait of Mike and Kathy, then we decided to take a portrait of the girls, then the brothers and sisters, then the family. Then Kathy asked if I would take few pictures of her mom and dad too. Kathy’s mom and dad are very old and her mom is starting to have memory issues.
Patty’s dad had fought through cancer last year (he was at death’s door) at the same time in the same hospital her mom was critically ill.
I’m telling you all this just to encourage you to pull out your camera and volunteer to take some portraits when you are with your family and friends. Tomorrow the entire situation could be completely different. And it is not always the oldest person who we loose. These portraits took a few minutes, not like the hour or so I normally spend with my photography clients, but they too will last a lifetime and have great meaning for those who choose to keep them.
Don’t forget to have the portraits printed out. Computers change. Hard drives crash. Technology changes quickly and computer media becomes corrupted or out of date as well.
PORTRAIT TIPS: Use a wider f stop to make the background more blurry (f 2.8, f4, f5.6). Shoot with a longer lens (at least 85mm) for more pleasing portraits of people. Shoot in open shade, not in the bright sun. The light will be much more even and pictures will be much nicer without having people squint and without having dark shadows in their eye sockets. Try to have your subjects brighter than the background (keep the background in the shade too). Last of all I always say, ” Now touch each other, it will make people think you like each other!” This always brings some natural smiles AND the portraits seem so much more intimate when the subject are touching.
Here are just a couple of the portraits I offered to make for a few minutes during the day we spent with Kathy and Mike to celebrate her birthday. This is Mike & Kathy.
This is Patty’s family. Left is her older sister Pam, then dad, then Patty and her brother Mike on the far right.
I took some candids of other things from the day, but I also put my camera in the trunk of my car (nearby) to socialize with everyone.
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. 
Hocking Hills Ohio, a vacation in wonderland and lessons in photography
I thought I would share some of the pictures that I took while vacationing over the 4th of July weekend in the Hocking hills or SE Ohio. For those interested in learning to take better pictures, I will explain what I did with each image or perhaps why certain elements are included in the images. I you have no interest in learning to take better pictures, then just look at the pictures and tell me if you think I did okay.
Evan is on the far right. Thumbs up because this is cool. Jordan is far left with the dreads. He is our nature boy and was climbing everything and observing the cliffs as well as things as small as spider webs. Alison, Lindsey, and Grant are in the middle. They are Andy’s kids. Pam is on the far right taking a picture of the group with several cameras. Patty, my wife, is not in this picture. Pam is Patty’s sister.
Making the picture:
Throughout the day I would pull out my gray target card and snap a photo for calibration of color. These caves and deep woods are very shady and I knew that I would have to calibrate the color of the images some how. I my case I shoot in RAW format and adjust the color of the images using the gray card. For those who prefer to shoot in JPG format, you would have to calibrate for white balance before you start shooting. If you don’t learn to calibrate for color or white balance, then pictures, especially in the shade will tend toward blue or cool color. It is amazing to me how much difference color calibration makes in images. As we were walking through these caves, they seems to have a warm glow. Without the calibration I would have settled for cool damp looking photographs. Auto white balance is just not smart enough to adjust color balance accurately. I took some additional pictures of this group without Pam at the right. To me including Pam creates some interest and tells a story.
I shot everything using my 17-40 f4 wide angle zoom lens. In this image there are extremes of very dark shadow and bright sun lit areas. If I had allowed much more of the sunny part into the image it would have caused the rest of the image to underexpose. If I had focused solely in the dark areas then the brighter areas would have gone completely white. I did not want to turn up my ISO too high because it would begin to show more noise (random specs of color in the shadows of the image). As you can see from Patty walking to the right of the image the shutter speed was slow. Since I did not have a tripod one trick that I use to hand hold slow shutter speeds is to use the motor drive on my camera. Rather than clicking just one image, I shoot off 4-5 shots. Usually I find that I was pretty still on one of the images and a couple will be unacceptable because of camera shake. I have also found that when using a wide angle lens, it just seems more interesting to me to have something close and something far. I darkened the bright area to the upper left quite a bit, however I lost some detail from the extreme brightness there.
The lighting was very interesting in this part of the trail. To capture it I took several images, but each time changed something. One I shot in the landscape format (horizontal) and the others I shot in the portrait (vertical) format. I also, you can see tried some pointing down into the shadows more and some pointing more up into the light. I is amazing to see how different a small change in angle makes to these images. I did not do any brightness changes on these because this is pretty much how I remember the scene and the lighting as it was is what makes this interesting to me. So take several images when you see something, but change things around somehow as you are shooting so that you have some choices, not just five frames of the same image. Which one do YOU like best?
As you walk through these caves your eyes adjust to the shade and then to the bright spots created when the sun sneaks through the trees and creates bright patches on the sandstone and dirt. I darkened the bright areas some, but if I were to eliminate them completely then the warm glow of the caves would be lost to shadow. With extremes in lighting you have to compromise in whatever way captures the scene more truly. Having a person in the image ad perspective to communicate more of the enormous size of some of these stone formations.
This portrait of Lindsey and Grant demonstrates the rule of thirds. Although the image is not cut perfectly into thirds, you notice that the people are not dead center. Nor is the water fall behind them. A bulls eye photo would feel boring and uninteresting or static. By moving things off center there are lots of things that draw your eye to various parts of this picture and make it interesting to look at.
Well, I hope you had fun looking at some of my pictures. These are not my creative senior portraits or my portraits with horses, but they keep me working on improving my photography so that I can deal with any outdoor setting that is presented to me for my professional images. I am a believer in lifelong learning. My goal is to learn something more each day in my photography. I learn about marketing, business, creative processes, photoshop, or whatever it is that I am open to by being around others. I have found that people who are not open to learn tend not to see so much that there is to be seen and to learn about.
Peter DeMott, http://www.photosbypdemott.com
Would love to connect with you via email (peter@photosbypdemott.com) or facebook or whatever. If you are interested in hiring me for a lifestyle portrait session for senior portraits, families, kids and equines, just give me a call at 937-478-6222.
Megan models for the Senior Portrait photography workshop
I had a great time at the senior portrait workshop sponsored by PPSO here in the Dayton area. There were about 30-35 photographers from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky here for a full day of learning. My son Evan and his friend Megan were two of the three models for the event.
Today, I thought I would just share a couple senior portraits of Megan. Although she was nervous at first, it was a really fun experience and she did a great job.
Many of the photographers talked about Megan’s beautiful eyes. Actually everything about here was lovely, but my gosh those eyes are something, wouldn’t you say. Creative pictures for girls involve softening whatever they do by bending in as many places as possible and shooting at an angle from the body rather than straight on.
Megan’s lovely smile was also a hit with all the photographers participating in the workshop.
This girls senior portrait has a secret garden sort of feel because of the leaves that I am peeking through to get the picture.
I got to meet several photographers that will be joining PPSO because of the great day they had with us learning to take better senior portraits. I enjoy friending other photographers as well as people who enjoy my style and are considering me for their senior portrait sessions. A phone consultation is the first step in scheduling your senior portrait photography session here in the Dayton and surrounding area. Peter DeMott 937-478-6222
This post will appear on my web site: http://www.photosbypdemott.com It will also appear on my facebook personal page and my facebook fan page along with a post on twitter. I am a portrait photographer in the Dayton, Ohio area specializing in on-location portraits of seniors, families and children. I also have a specialty in equine (horse) photography and will come to your farm or stable for your session. If you like my style I encourage you to follow me in any or all the above mentioned areas. If you are a photographer, I enjoy networking with other photographers both professional and amateur.
Creative senior portrait session ideas I would like to try
Inspiration from my friend Selley Paulson
I just got delivery of a blog post by my friend Shelley Paulson of Shelley Paulson Photography. In the post she explained that she loves doing portrait sessions around old abandoned houses. Dilapidated and overgrown, they provide such opportunity to have creative and different portraits. Here is Shelley’s post about an abandoned Frank Lloyd Wright style home which had been abandoned for many years. The roof was caved in and it was overgrown.
http://blog.shelleypaulson.com/?p=3530
This session was with two sisters, but it got me thinking about some options that I would like to try for senior portraits here in the Dayton area. If you would like to try one of these options for your senior portrait session, I am offering a $50 discount off the creative/session fee to the first one who calls with a cool idea. Oh, and you have to have the location in mind. It has to be a place you know. How fun is that?
Here is my list:
• Dilapidated, abandoned barn
• Abandoned farm equipment
• New farm equipment of the HUGE variety
• Abandoned rusty OLD car
• Abandoned warehouse or factory of some kind
• A barn with lots of antique farm tools hanging around
Help me grow this list
If you have an idea you would like to pursue just call me to discuss it. Call Peter at 937-478-6222. If you have ideas to add to my list that’s fun too, feel free to add a comment here. You can also email me at peter@photosbypdemott.com After you look at these beautiful portraits done by my friend Shelley, get your creative juices going and join with me to make the list longer or to call me for your totally unique senior portrait session here in the Dayton area.
Outdoor senior portrait with Fairmont student Tom Musselman
After two days of solid rain I was not sure what the weather would bring for my senior portrait session scheduled at Cox Arboritum. As it turned out the weather was fine. In fact, really I would have preferred a little more cloud cover to even out the light a little better.
As we talked, I found out that Tom had worked at a reptile wholesale breeder in the Xenia area in the summer. There were green pythons valued at about $4,000 and then there were thousands of more common reptiles that make popular pets. It sounded like an amazing opperation. My son Jordan has some kind of python or boa constrictor or something.
Tom’s mom wanted some nice portraits outdoors with Tom in a suit. Tom is a relaxed comfort kind of guy and part of the deal with his mom was that after he took some suit portraits he could add his baseball cap and then transition into the clothes he likes. I think it worked out great.
Tom is not sure where he is headed after graduation.
If you have a special interest and want your portraits at a unique location, that’s what I am all about. I do quite a few equine portraits with students because of my specialty in that area, but I also did a session with a young lady at her grandpa’s farm with her dads hotrod as the background.
To get new ideas you are welcome to visit my web site and sign up for a subscription by email to my posts (see sign up box at the top right of my home page here http://www.photosbypdemott.com ) I also have buttons there for facebook and twitter. My phone number is (937) 478-6222 and I provide location lifestyle photography in and around the Dayton area.
Chicken Chase Pioneer Endurance Ride – Recap and photos 2010
Each year the Chicken Chase Endurance ride is our rite of spring. Patty starts getting excited and tries to ride her horse on the weekends in anticipation of the first Endurance ride of the spring. Trailer gets packed up and ready, etc, etc, etc.
The weather during the ride was great. Many trees were in blossom and the grass in the pastures where we camped was lush and green.
On the first day of the ride, Friday, I was taking pictures of the riders coming into the first vet check. To find a good spot, I climbed a very steep hill for about half a mile and I was able to take pictures of about the first half of the riders when it started raining. I waited it out for a bit and thought it was over, but then there was a bit of a downpour. At that point I covered my camera with my down vest and headed back down the hill.
A link to my pictures from the ride is at the end of this post. Daniel is another photographer that was there, but he was not able to shoot at all on the biggest day which was Saturday. Friday’s ride was tuff with steep hills and longer miles (30 miles and 55 miles) This year the turn out was low however and even on Saturday there were only about 30 25 mile riders and 30 50 mile riders. Normally this ride is well over 100 riders. Hopefully some of these pictures will inspire some of you to come to this well managed ride next year.
One thing that I notice at endurance rides is that in most cases as the people ride by me, they are smiling big. Sometimes they have a look of concern or concentration on their faces because they are trying to anticipate and figure out how their horse is going to respond to me firing off my camera as they ride by. But other than that, everyone is smiling and talking about how beautiful the trails are.
This last trail picture is of my wife Patty on her horse Cocoa. In most cases the horses are at a fast trot or sometimes a canter as they pass by me on the trail. These still pictures do not show you just how fast these folks are booking as they pass by.
In the evenings before the sun went down, I walked around the camp and took various portraits. The ideal light just before sunset provided that soft quality that made for great portrait taking.
It rained some that night, but had stopped by morning and the day was very pretty. Thank goodness it did not rain hard all night long because our tent had about ten drips. Make a note, along with rain gear for my camera, I need to get tent seam sealer and retreat the seams on the rain fly of the ten. I was able to take pictures of almost every rider on Saturday, however it was too nice out. You see when the sun gets bright in the sky it becomes more difficult to find places with even light in the forest. Light becomes patchy with horses running in and out of shadowy and bright areas as they come down the trail.
At the dinner and awards on Saturday evening one rider came to me and asked if I could take some portraits of her dog. Her dog would be going into surgery next week for the removal of some cancer, but he is an oder dog and the cancer would soon have its way with the dog. I said sure and we were able to do some portraits. At first she said, I think just the dog, then I suggested that we do some with her in the portraits too.
LINKS to more pictures from the Chicken Chase Pioneer Endurance ride.
If you participated in this endurance ride, if you know someone who did, please send them here to look at the pictures. Also at the top of the proof page, there is a coupon code listed for 30% off for all orders placed within 30 days of the event. If you have any questions and you would like to talk with me about them, please feel free to give me a call at 937-478-6222
I also have some images posted on facebook. If you go to my business page, you should be able to “tag” pictures with who they are and the pictures will be posted to that person’s wall.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164475&id=152303558213
Pictures from the camp area by Daniel are available at his web site here: http://www.picturesdanieltook.com/Endurance-Horse-Rides
To learn more about endurance riding as a sport go to the American Endurance Ride Conference web site here http://www.aerc.org and explore.
I also took some video clips at this ride that you can watch here (Just short little video clips to give you a taste of what endurance riding is about):
Last of all, I posted an album of some of my favorite images on my facebook business page. If you go here you are welcome to tag any photos of people you know so that these pictures will go to their wall (just please leave my information on the photos) and I welcome you to become a fan of Peter DeMott Photography if you like.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164475&id=152303558213
Sharing talent, putting music together with photography at Fairhaven Church in Dayton Ohio
I’m really pleased with some pictures that I took this morning at my church. I have gone to the pastoral staff and volunteered my “talent” in photography for anything church related as one way of giving back. Sometimes if there is something special going on, I take pictures. Children’s choir, Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday etc. Gradually some of the pictures migrate to the church web site and printed materials.
Fairhaven is a wonderful church. Check out this web site if you don’t have a church home: http://www.fairhavenchurch.org It’s the church you can see the steeple of from I-675 as your go around Dayton and it is located on Whipp Rd. at Marshal Rd.
Here are just a few of the pictures from this morning:
This post will appear on my web site: http://www.photosbypdemott.com It will also appear on my facebook personal page and my facebook fan page along with a post on twitter. I am a portrait photographer in the Dayton, Ohio area specializing in on-location portraits of seniors, families and children. I also have a specialty in equine (horse) photography and will come to your farm or stable for your session. If you like my style I encourage you to follow me in any or all the above mentioned areas. If you are a photographer, I enjoy networking with other photographers both professional and amateur.
Trails End Equestrian Center Barn Door Mini Sessions at DLSC show
These are a couple young ladies that I hope will become the subjects of some of my senior portrait sessions with horses. These are from mini barn door sessions that I took while at the horse show at the Trails End Equestrian Center which is a couple miles down the road from my home.
It’s fun to get professional portraits of kids with horses. At these shows and stables, kids can enjoy horses in a very controlled environment that is fairly safe. Kid’s, children and horses, with great smiles, you can’t beat that.
Sometimes I shoot the local horse shows in the DLSC (Dayton Local Show Circuit). Here are the participating farms:
http://www.trailsend.biz/dlscorgs.html
and the schedule of shows
http://www.trailsend.biz/dlscshows.html
Participating Farms and Stables Listed here. Come and join the fun.
Dancing Horse Farm – Lebanon – 513-933-0343
Greenstone Stables – Germantown – 937-859-1835
The Riding Center – Xenia – 937-767-9087
Shelby Farm – Centerville – 937-886-9230
Stillwater Pony Club – Beavercreek – 937-426-9443
Trails End Equestrian Center – Dayton -937-835-5062
Wetherbrook Farm – Waynesville – 937-885-6328
Whitehouse Stables – Sidney – 937-492-3831
This post will appear on my web site: http://www.photosbypdemott.com It will also appear on my facebook personal page and my facebook fan page along with a post ontwitter. I am a portrait photographer in the Dayton, Ohio area specializing in on-location portraits of seniors, families and children. I also have a specialty in equine (horse) photography and will come to your farm or stable for your session. If you like my style I encourage you to follow me in any or all the above mentioned areas. If you are a photographer, I enjoy networking with other photographers both professional and amateur.
Taking better winter & snow portraits (follow up)
A couple days ago as the big snow was about to arrive here in the Dayton area, I posted about how to take better snow pictures.
Snow is white and bright and it will trick your camera into thinking that it needs to cut down the amount of light coming into the camera. You see cameras are calibrated to average the scene at 18% gray. When you are shooting in snow and most of the scene is white, your camera is programed to make the scene 18% gray. So your camera without a little help from you will severely underexpose your snow pictures. Your white snow will become gray murky snow because not only is it under exposed severely, but because it is underexposed there will be an increase in digital noise (that looks like little specks of various colors sprinkled about the picture).
What needs to happen to make good snow pictures? Most modern digital cameras have a control called “exposure compensation”. If it is in your menu, it will be a marker that can be moved to 1+, 2+, 3+ to add more light or 1-, 2-, 3- to reduce the exposure. With snow, you want to increase the exposure by 1+ or 1.5+ or 2+. This is counterintuitive (it is not what you expect without much thought). But, you don’t want gray snow right? So do it. Now take a picture with lots of snow in it and take a look at the histogram on the back of your camera. The white portion of the scene will show mostly on the right. If the histogram graph shows mostly in the middle, your snow will be gray. If most of the data is to the left your picture will be very underexposed, almost black.
The snow came and I noticed a bunch of dark snow pictures on Facebook and other places. I am sure there are many folks out there, frustrated that their portraits and snow pictures did not turn out very good.
This morning we woke up and saw that there was hoarfrost all over the trees. It was very cold and yet the air had some humidity in it. The humidity frosted onto the branches of the trees as if it had snowed. It’s very pretty. My wife Patty said, “lets go take some pictures of the hoarfrost and the horses. The following portraits are the result of using the exposure compensation adjustment (on my camera there is quick access to the exposure compensation). I tried 2+, but that was a tad too much. When I looked at the image on the back on my camera my over exposure blinkers were showing. I moved it down to 1.5+ and in some cases 1+ and the images turned out great.
Additonal portraits from this morning’s session can be found here: SNOW PORTRAITS
This post will appear on my facebook and my facebook business page. It is also on my web site here. You are welcome to follow my by friending me on facebook, becoming a fan or signing up for email delivery from the front page of my web site.
