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 ...
Kentucky Diehard Endurance Ride at The Nature Preserve at Shaker Village
The weather was near perfect for the Kentucky Diehard Endurance Ride at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill & The Nature Preserve at Shaker Village just south of Lexington Kentucky. I stayed overnight in an old Shaker Village meeting house before the ride on Saturday November 21, 2009. My room was on the third floor up a very narrow staircase with a latch door and simple decor (except the bathroom which was modern). The room light was a lamp in the form of a candle stick and a dim electric candle light bulb. This building was about 300 yards from the stable ...
Daniel Goffe Senior Portrait Session
I know Daniel's mom and dad from church. Daniel and his mom and dad are all very active at Fairhaven Church. One time I saw one of his Facebook updates and I sent him a friend request. I was impressed that Daniel was informed about politics and did not have his head in the sand as many do. His mom Sueann called and we set a time for some fall portraits, however about that time Daniel got the Flu so we had to postpone things for a week. That was after the windy weekend that brought most of the leaves ...
Session books can be special keepsakes for seniors and others
I spent the evening preparing a book to be sent off for printing. It has a hard cover with a portrait wrapped onto the front cover. Inside there can be 20-40 pages of pictures from the session. My first sample book is of my client Jennifer Truett and her horse Lydia that she lost earlier this year. On Facebook she had posted about her prize show horse and companion and that she may have to put her down due to a severe founder from getting sick. She would know within the next two weeks if the horse could survive or not. ...
Evan & Kyle’s Senior Portrait Session
So what happens when two moms who were best friends as kids grow up and both become teachers. What happens when they move to the same city and just happen to become teachers at the same school? Well, there youngest sons become best friends through elementary school, through middle school and through high school. It was pretty fun doing their senior portrait session and seeing just how comfortable they are in their own skin. Still clowns and always having fun. Here is some history for you to enjoy, then I am going to share some of my favorite images from the ...
Jen and Ken Damon’s Family Portrait Session at their home in Miamisburg
We were all set to meet at the Cox Arboretum for their family portrait session when we realized that there was a garlic festival going on so it would have been a major hassle to get into the park. My wife suggested that we consider doing the session at their home in Miamisburg. Last spring they had beautiful new paver walk and patio along with landscaping done at their home. When I arrived I checked things out and set up some chairs by their front porch. As you can see it worked out wonderfully and Jen said later that she felt ...
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 ...
Autumn Cates Senior Portrait Session at her grandparents home in Farmersville
Autumn called me about senior portraits a couple of weeks ago. When I asked her if there were special places or things she had in mind she explained that she would like her portraits taken at her grandparent's home. They live out in Farmersville and their neighbor has a horse she wanted me to take her portraits with. In addition they had the restored hotrod Charger SS that used to belong to her dad. I have other posts of people with their horses and I thought that these portraits with a car that has special meaning for Autumn turned out great ...
Sarah B.- Senior Portrait Photography Session on location at Cox Arboretum near Dayton
Pegge is a close friend to my wife Patty DeMott and had seen some of my photography work. She asked if I would do a senior portrait session with her daughter Sarah so we scheduled something toward evening. We almost rescheduled because there was a little drizzle when we arrived, but we decided to go ahead and do the session. I figured if we got rained out, we could just go the rain date later in the week. Sarah and her mom have a great relationship and between my wife and Pegge they kept Sarah smiling. A couple times ...
Sarah Wheeler’s Senior Portraits at Dancing Horse Farm
It was fun to create portraits of Sarah with her horse for her senior portraits at Dancing Horse Farm near Lebanon, Ohio (only about a half hour from where I am based in Germantown, Ohio near Dayton, Ohio). Her mom and her little sister helped some with getting ears up. When shooting horses sometimes the most difficult thing is to get the horses attention. In this case, I think that Sarah's arms were very tired from pulling his head up out of the beautiful green grass. I've done several sessions at Dancing Horse Farm including portraits like these as well ...
Child Photography can be so Serendipitous
I had a session with two families at Cox Arboritum here in Dayton. Before we even started these two cousins came together in a nice shaded area where the light was just right. I had just set my camera adjustments and figured I would fire off a few shots. Now these were the first of several images that I took. The first of the entire session. What do you think? With children, I think if I could say we haven't started yet for about a half an hour before then spend about 15 minutes saying, "okay now we are officially taking pictures", ...
Cracked Oats Crunch Endurance & Ctr
Endurance ride photography is both challenging and fun. For endurance rides I have to get up early to find places on the trail where the light is good and that say something about the ride. I want the pictures to bring back good memories of the event. The people in endurance and competitive trail riding are great too. This is a sport for people that enjoy riding their horses. There are no big cash prizes to taint the sport, just lots of competitive spirit and interesting interesting people. This ride was staged at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and included a ...
KC’s senior portrait session at Cox Arboritum in Dayton, Ohio
KC was really fun to photograph for her senior portraits. She is a soft spoken beautiful young lady and we met at Cox Aboritum for her session at about 7pm. Her mom dropped her off and her sister joined us to carry her change of clothes. We walked around the park and tried various things and almost everything we did worked great. The weather in the Dayton, Ohio area this summer has been cool and there has been lots of rain so the flowers were still in bloom and the grass was still nice and green. As a location photographer, ...
Kids can be such great fun and challenge to photograph
I like to take portraits of little kids, but I really like them to be natural environmental portraits. Sometimes it takes some time and experimentation before kids start to relax. One thing that I have to explain to parents it that they cannot participate in directing their children. Directions like, "Not that smile, I want to see teeth," from a parent just makes kids more tense and nervous about what is about to happen. Kids like to play and that is when their most real and natural expressions come out. Once they get used to me clicking off the shutter every ...
Touch and whisper for great looking natural smiles
At our annual PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) picnic we were encouraged to come with our cameras to take some portraits of each other's families. Toni Forgue was asking me about getting natural expressions from people. Two tricks that I had just learned from a photographers seminar came in handy. I told Toni I wanted to take some portraits of her with her husband. He sat down and crossed his arms. He looked comfortable and relaxed. I told her to put her arms around his neck in a comfortable way. Now, what was my trick to get Toni to ...
Equine Portraits of Horse & Rider / Merlot and Patty
Patty had been training (sacking out in horse training lingo) Merlot to the clippers and being the very teachable horse that he is, he let her trim his muzzle and bridle path and even his ears. Patty had been grooming him and working with him for over an hour and she was excited about his new look. "Hey Peter, can we do some portraits?" I said "sure, but we only had light for another 45 minutes." Patty ran upstairs to put on some nicer clothes and primp herself a little bit, then out we went. The evening light was just soft ...
My wife Patty just adores her horse Cocoa
This was a picture that I took of Patty and Cocoa just after Patty shocked Cocoa when she touched him and the electric fence at the same time. You can see Patty saying things like "Oh you poor thing, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that to you." Of course Cocoa was just soaking it all in and I was able to capture the moment creating one of Patty's favorite portraits of her with her horse. Although I can do at liberty and under sadle equine shoots, and even though I can do conformation poses, the thing that I ...
She said she didn’t like to have her portait taken, guess what she had a blast
I love it when I capture natural smiles and my subject genuinely has a great time being photographed. This young lady's mom said, "she hates to have her picture taken", however in no time at all she was relaxing and enjoying the session. What an absolutely great smile. Related posts:Sarah B.- Senior Portrait Photography Session on location at Cox Arboretum near Dayton KC’s senior portrait session at Cox Arboritum in Dayton, Ohio A telephoto zoom and kids / I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE natural smiles.
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untitled 2 Welcome to Peter DeMott Photography Web Site and Blog
Feel free to explore the menu and pages to get a feel for my style and work. If you have questions, please feel free to email me or call.
Specializing in On-Location & Environmental Portraits
On-Location photography offers you the opportunity to have portraits created that reflect on you in a personal and enduring way. You pick the location, grandpa’s farm, the stable, your home, and other locations that have special meaning for you. I also photograph at local parks where beautiful backgrounds have an enduring quality. For people who own a horse or horses, I have an equine specialty so I know horse photography whether your photo needs are for your personal enjoyment (horse and rider portraits) or for the promotion of a horse (stallion promotion for example) or rider (for competition) or for a horse associated business (for boarding stables, trainers, etc.).
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I’d love to hear from you even if just to discuss your ideas for a session you’d like to consider. You can call me or email me to start. My portrait sessions are satisfaction guaranteed. If you are not completely happy with the results of the session we can reshoot or you can have your money back. Your choice, no questions asked.
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