Peter DeMott Photography

The lovely work of Laureen Carruthers Photography in Canada

Peter — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:01:44 +0000

On a Facebook group that I belong to, this morning one of the photographers shared an image. My response was wow, that is fantastic. Then in the copy by the image she explained that in Canada they call senior portraits “Grad portraits”. I thought that was interesting and since I share here quite a bit about senior pics and senior portraits, I thought maybe it’s time that I share some more from other places that also do them.

Here is the image that caught my attention. I have added © LaureenCarruthersphotography.com to each of the images that I am going to share because there was nothing on the images and I in no way want anyone to think that I took these. Also, if people PIN the images or grab them in some other way, Laureen is well identified as the author of the images.

After I talked with Laureen briefly on Facebook she was fine with me sharing some of the images from her blog as well. What I found was a diversity of talent and creativity. One of the things that I like most about her images is the authenticity of expression in the people in the portraits, but she also shared images from vacations, from baby sessions, and even a rodeo. One image of two boys with a garter snake is just outstanding and I am sure that many photographers that see this will think, “I’d already be gone!” when they see this, but Laureen has several boys so I am sure that she has seen about every kink of critter that is out there.

If you want to visit here website and blog you can click on the link here, or I will also link up each of the photographs so that if you click on them they will go straight to her website. All I can say now is ENJOY! Laureen Carruthers Photography

Her Facebook page can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laureen-Carruthers-Photography She tells me that she has not been keeping up with her blog, but I’ll bet she’s staying current with her sessions and shoots on Facebook.

Can you buy a camera and start a photography business?

Peter — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:40:49 +0000

For those who follow my web site because they love photography or are considering starting a photography business, I just ran across this interesting video and blog post that I thought would be well worth your read. You can click on the link or the photo and it will take you to the site so that you can play the video. This is part three of a ten part series so enjoy and go explore the others as well if you are serious about starting a photography business.

http://www.lightroompresets.com/2012/05/08/part-3-of-10-starting-your-business-5-things-to-consider/

Hope you enjoy it.

Equine action photography at Endurance rides with AERC

Peter — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:38:11 +0000

May cover of Endurance News Magazine

I was pleased to receive a large envelope in the mail today containing a copy of the May edition of Endurance News, the house publication of American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC). It had a post-it note from the editor of the publication because one of my Endurance ride photos was on the front cover.

Challenging Endurance ride

Canter Over the Mountain was the name of the endurance ride. Here in the woods at this water crossing the temperature was reasonable, but at the vet check and other places throughout the ride temperatures were in the nineties and humidity close to 100%. It is already a challenging ride because of the steep inclines and varied trail, but this particular year there were many pulls from the ride.

If you don’t know much about Endurance riding, throughout each event horse and rider are required to stop for a vet check. The horses are checked for recovery time, lameness, dehydration and other things to make sure that the horse is approved to continue. If the vet deems that there is a reason that the horse should not continue it’s called a pull (your horse is pulled out and cannot continue the event). This why it is really about knowing and training your horse and so many endurance folks love the challenge of the event and knowing their horse and what it can do.

I said that the horse AND RIDER have to go through a vet check. Well, on this ride it was important to make sure the riders were hydrated and able to continue. Many horse and rider teams pulled themselves out of the ride even though the vet would allow them to continue. It was that tough a ride.

Learn more about this horse and rider sport

Here is where you can learn more about Endurance riding: AERC

In addition I have video clips linked up where I interviewed the head vet about the ride here: Canter Over the Mountain – Ride management cannot control the weather.

Another thing I like to do along with the action shots from the ride that I provide for the participants in these events is to take portraits of the riders with their horses before or after the event. This time around though, it was too dang hot and everyone was red-faced and covered in sweat.

You can see in these images how riders use sponges to cool their horses when they had opportunity.

Centerville Elk’s Ben Herlihy senior portrait session

Peter — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:13:39 +0000

Had a great time photographing Ben Herlihy on Sunday evening this week. Ben is a serious athlete playing baseball in Centerville. He has a great golden retriever which we included in some of the images.

At the end of the session I invited mom, Kris Herlihy, to sit down for a minute for one last image for the session. Here are the images that became their sneak peek for their online proofing album.

Here is that last portrait that I mentioned. It’s amazing how fast kids grow up. This time together in the park and these senior portraits will become precious memories for a lifetime.

Hilltop Equestrian Center Hunter Jumper show (Dayton Local Show Circuit-DLSC)

Peter — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:44:41 +0000

I had a great time taking some pictures at the Hilltop Equestrian Center’s April 21st Hunter Jumper show today. This was my first exposure to this facility and I have to say that I was very impressed. The place is lovely. The indoor arena is very nice with a windowed viewing area as well as space out in the open for viewing from within the arena area. Unfortunately it was an overcast day, so although the arena has some awesome skylights, it was still too dim to capture action and jumping inside the arena.

Hilltop Equestrian Center April 21 Hunter Jumper Show (DLSC member)

But, I had a great time taking pictures in the warm-up arena just outside. Here is a link to the images for purchase: Hilltop April 21 Hunter Jumper show From this link you can purchase anything from wallets to 30×40 canvas prints for wall decor in your home. If you have any questions about ordering pictures, please feel free to give me a call and I can walk you through the purchase process. The pictures are in the order they were taken, and I took several sets of images of many individuals. What that means is that you should go ahead and look through all the pages to make sure you have seen all the pictures that you might want. Peter DeMott 937-478-6222

Images for use on Facebook and to Email to friends and family

In addition, for any portrait or image that you order an 5×7 or larger I will email you a Facebook image to use in social networking web sites. Please send me an email after you place your order online. peter@photosbypdemott.com

Farm Call Portrait Sessions and Senior portraits

I was also able to talk to two people about farm call portrait sessions in the coming weeks. Everything is greening up nicely and the coming weeks as your horse finishes shedding out are a great time for portraits of you with you competitive partner /equine companion.

I hope you enjoy this little sneak peek. Purchasing images from the site above will encourage me to attend more of the local shows. These are the times of your lives and I hope that you will purchase images that will keep these memories alive for you for a lifetime.

I’d also love you to share this post with your friends. Just copy the URL from your browser and send the link in your email. Please feel free to comment about this post as well.

Professional but casual business portraits for social media like Facebook and LinkedIn

Peter — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:39:08 +0000

For all the social media today it is important to have images that communicate your professionalism, but at the same time are not stiff and stodgy. They need to say that you are someone they would enjoy “networking” with.

I’m going to make you run around a bit. This is my post about business portraits for Dayton area professional on my other web site called GROW YOUR BUSINESS IN DAYTON http://www.gybindayton.com Click on this link to take you right to that example.

You will see a few images and a testimonial letter.

After going there, then find out more by going to my page about business portraits. Business Portraits

Jen Hillenga all day workshop in Dayton Ohio sponsored by PPSO.org

Peter — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:49:15 +0000

July 9th 2012 at Cox Arboretum near the Dayton Mall

I encourage you to pass this along to your photographer friends in the Dayton area and the region (Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and the entire SW Ohio area). This is great opportunity right here in SW Ohio for you to grow as a portrait photographer and learn new things about business of photography. Everyone is welcome to participate. Sponsored by PPSO.org here in SW Ohio. 9am – 9pm packed with learning and experience. Bring your camera and grow as a photographer.

Jen Hillenga Alldayworkshop PDF full-sized flyer

Family portrait session at Sharon Woods in Cincinnati

Peter — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:57:18 +0000

Two lovely families want portraits together

Amalie called me asking about family portraits for two families. They live in West Chester, but the other family was visiting from Georgia in about two weeks. I was hoping that the foliage would all be out and good for backgrounds for the family groups. We selected Sharon Woods in Cincinnati because it would be convenient for them. She explained that there were some smaller children which could be tricky.

The day before the session I scoped out Sharon Woods. I was able to find water falls that looked like it could be interesting. When everyone arrived, we took some pictures by the entrance to the park, but then I suggested that we head to this water falls that would make for several portrait opportunities. Getting the kids to relax and not smile too hard took some time. As they started to relax, several groupings just sort of came together. And that is they way I like it. I don’t want to say, stand just here and don’t move or something like that. Better to have the family interact and catch them being a family together.

Here are some of the images from the session:

Crew team at Xavier University lake Harsha competition

Peter — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:34:51 +0000

I had some fun taking pictures of my son and the Xavier Crew team competing at Lake Harsha in Batavia near Cincinnati. This is not the portrait photography that I normally share here.

Tell me if you can feel the coolness of the morning with the mist coming off the water in the early morning. This is a very different sort of sport than wrestling which Evan participated in as a junior and senior in high school. This sport is about strength, endurance, timing and teamwork. In addition they are in what seems to be a tiny little boat that barely sits high enough in the water to keep from sinking.

There is definitely some skill to direct the rowers and rudder the boat effectively. During the competition there was one crew team that was low on experience and their boat was all over the place.

Hope you enjoy the pictures:

Pins from Peter DeMott Photography

Peter — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 01:26:00 +0000

It was actually pretty fun to explore the various PINs from this website onto Pinterest. Pinterest is a pin board for photography. Although it does provide a link to my site and a citation under the photograph as to where the photo came from, I am also glad that I have chosen to put my copyright, name and web site on every portrait that I put on the web.

Here is a portion of the page and link so you can see: PINS for photosbypdemott

It is also fun to see the different pages that the photographs are pinned to:

• Senior picture ideas

• Equine Portraits

• Picture ideas

• Senior Picture Photography

• Senior picture posing ideas

• Ideas for Senior Pictures

• Senior picture ideas

and more..

When I click on one of my photographs that has been PINNED, it shows the image like this:

There are sometimes comments under the photographs like this one, “Great ideas found here” and my web site is hot-linked above the image. In addition you can tweet the image of drop it into Facebook or perhaps embed in on your blog or web site. I am assuming that the hot link remains when the images are embedded this way. It also shows the first person to PIN the image and also if the image has been re-pinned 2 times (or however many times people have re-pinned it under various categories).

Since the pins point back to this website, and since I have my name a web site on every portrait that I post here, I guess that I can count it as free advertising.

Not everything is peachy keen though. I see some pins that have copyright information chopped off or which reference “uploaded by user” even when it is clear the user who created that particular board is not the person who actually created the image. By downloading and then uploading the image instead of pinning the image, the reference website is effectively removed. If copyright information is also removed there is then no way to track the photograph to the original source. As I looked at the Pinterest terms of service, this is both copyright infringement and Pinterest abuse and it can be reported. If someone is reported doing this more than a time or two, they can be banned from the site or removed.

I think I will have to try Pinterest soon. Are YOU a member of Pinterest? Are you enjoying creating some pin boards? Have you seen people abusing the terms of service on Pinterest? What is your take on this new sharing utility?