Senior Portraits in Snow, Horse and Rider Portraits in Snow & Family and Kids in Snow

Gray and dreary outdoors here in the Dayton area. I cannot wait for Spring and the blossoms and new green foliage.

Right now in the Dayton area, there is not much snow. However the first weeks of February can be unpredictable and we could have what West Virginia is digging out of any time in the next several weeks (first three weeks of February, that is). As it is now, we have nothing but gray and it does not make for beautiful outdoor portraits.

BUT, if the snow flies again consider professional on-location outdoor portraits

If we do get a big dose of snow in the coming weeks, I just want you to know that I am available to take Senior Portraits in Snow. I’ve recently posted some snow portraits with horses along with some tips on how to get great snow pictures and portraits. Lots of white snow is NOT a time when you can just trust you camera to make the right decisions. If you want to take your own pictures in the snow, review my previous posts to get some good ideas, but it you want professional on-location snow portraits of your high school senior or your children (special family time portraits of mom and dad with the kids), don’t hesitate to give me a call when the weather man starts talking heavy snow. If you have a wooly horse that you want portraits with in the snow, I can do those too. If it works out, you will have extra special portraits, completely unique and fun to share. Call me at 937-478-6222 (Peter DeMott). IF the snow comes and IF someone takes me up on this offer, I will share some extra special and completely unique family portraits, senior portraits, or horse and rider portraits here on my blog.

If you missed my earlier posts with tips on getting good snow pictures and portraits with your digital camera, here they are:

http://www.photosbypdemott.com/2010/01/snow-snow-snow-taking-better-pictures-in-snow/

http://www.photosbypdemott.com/2010/01/taking-better-winter-snow-portraits-follow-up/

This post is on my web site and blog here: http://www.photosbypdemott.com . It will also appear on my personal facebook page where you are welcome to friend me: Peter DeMott . It will be on my Twitter account: pdemottphoto . And last it will show up on my facebook fan page: Peter DeMott Photography . You are welcome to share these posts and links with your friends in snowy areas, become a fan or friend or follow my web site by subscribing on the top right of my home page. Thanks, Peter DeMott

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.

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 out of the trees. Furturnately there were some trees at Cox Aboretum in Centerville that still had some color.

For the photographers among my readers here, I shoot with a Canon 1D Mark IIn digital camera using a 70-200mm f 2.8 lens. My wife Patty helps me with a large silver reflector to bring some extra light to my subject so that I can create the portraits mainly in the shade. Portraits are bets in open shade because the light is even and the variations in brightness are all within the digital camera’s range of sensitivity. In bright noonday sun you will bet burned out areas and harsh dark shadows in the eye sockets. In the summer I shoot just when the sun is going down. Now in the fall that is much earlier so most of my sessions will now have to happen on weekends. I shoot RAW format (not JPG) which requires processing of the images in photoshop. I also shoot a gray card a couple of times throughout the session for color calibration when processing. The card I use gives me good whites and nice warm skin tones. If you like my photographic style and you have questions about photography, I am certainly open to sharing my thoughts with you. I would also encourage photographers in SW Ohio to join PPSO (Professional Photographers of Southwest Ohio). We meet monthly and have outstanding speakers and trainers come each month. Not only that, but I get to talk with other professionals who are also open and willing to discuss what they know with me. You can’t beat that.

Back to Daniels session. Here are a couple of highlights from the session. At the bottom of this post I have a link to the rest of the portraits we created.

Here is the gallery of images, just click on this link DANIEL

I’ll be sharing some environmental pet portraits soon. If you would like some portraits of your pet at your home or some other special location, don’t hesitate to give me a call so we can discuss your ideas.

The power of pictures in advertising and networking

This morning I went to the AM Centerville Rainmakers business networking meeting. I had the privilege to invite Dave Herlihy to visit and find out more about this group. Dave is the owner of FLOORCO which is a flooring company in Miamisburg just down the road from Interstate Ford.

It was fun to introduce him around to various key contacts for him. A realtor, a builder, a remodeler and others. He left the meeting excited about the Rainmaker model of business oriented social networking.

Dave is well known in our church, Fairhaven here in the Dayton area and I was meeting with him later to discuss advertising in REACH magazine for his flooring company. As we discussed what his ad might look like, I suggested that it would be important to have his picture in the ad. The person who shared at the Rainmakers meeting talked about how she had lost business because people went with someone else saying, “I didn’t know that you did that, I would have called you if I had known.” She explained that she now has 30-40% of her business coming from networking. So in my discussion with Dave, I told him that we did not know (me and Patty, my wife) that his store was also retail flooring. We thought it was just direct to the trades. I suggested that the first thing he would want to do in his ad was to put his picture in it so that all the people who have the same misunderstanding that Patty and I had, would see his face and think of him when they had a flooring need. Many people at Fairhaven, for example, have the same misunderstanding about his business. By the way, Dave is coming to my home to measure our back porch and recommend flooring options for us. I trust Dave and know that as I do my barn studio build out that I will be calling him again.

In today’s business environment, more and more, people like doing business with people they know. Dave knows boatloads of people, but many don’t know they could go directly to him to purchase flooring. My feeling is that since Dave is such a well know and likable fellow, that as soon as we can “get the word out that he sells direct too” he will begin to gain business.

Leaving the Rainmakers meeting with a half dozen or more very good contacts, Dave decided to join Rainmakers on the spot and take advantage of special savings being offered that day. When I met with him to discuss REACH Magazine, the first half of our meeting was spent discussing the Rainmaker networking model. Then we talked about direct mail with REACH Magazine targeting the south part of the Dayton area market.

What does this all have to do with a photography blog? I have helped people in Rainmakers by improving their PROFILE picture on the business networking web sites like LINKEDIN and RAINOHIO. As I have met and gotten to know fellow Rainmakers, I startled one young lady by telling her that her profile picture did not do her any favors in promoting herself. I suggested that at the next meeting I would take a profile photo of her to use. She was a willing candidate, but seemed very skeptical that it would have any impact for her. I sent her several pictures to choose from and she uploaded one as her new profile portrait. The first thing that happened was that she got complements on her new profile portrait almost daily for several weeks. You will have to ask her yourself if it had direct impact on the number of appointments that she was having, but I suspect that it made a lot of difference. For anyone who is on FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN or RAINOHIO with a blank profile (No picture uploaded), you are severely cutting down your potential impact.

Does your profile portrait show you as relaxed, enjoyable, confident, outgoing, etc……?

This is Melody McCord’s new profile portrait. What do you think? What did her old profile picture look like..it was a picture of her at a resort and it was so far away that you could not make out her face. You can look her up at the Rainmakers web site for OHIO at RainOhio.com. You can also look at the EVENTS tab along the right of the page to see where the Rainmakers meeting will be. You are welcome to come and visit and, if I am there, please introduce yourself to me.

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 session.

Two mom’s and two kids on trick or treat night long, long, ago. Patty DeMott, my wife, on the left and Jennifer Damon on the right. Our Evan is Santa. Kyle was the head elf.

Patty, Evan, Kyle and Amy (another teacher in the fifth grade team)

Here they are today, both seniors getting their portraits done. As a High School Portrait Photographer, I can play around as much as they do. It was actually quite fun because these two young men are completely comfortable in their own skins. Letting they play around a bit, and even showing them a couple of these goofy images helped them to relax and have a great time.

Still Clowns and a couple of nuts when they are around each other, but getting more serious about life too.

Enough to make two mom’s cry. To see more images from this session click on this link Evan & Kyle .

Evan and Kyle are seniors at Miamisburg Highschool in Miamisburg, Ohio.

I’ve love to hear what you think of these images. Please feel free to leave a comment.

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).

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 we had to stop talking for a while so that Sarah could relax her smiles a bit, but it was great fun. Here is a portrait I took of the two of them together.

To see more portraits from this senior portrait session go here: Sarah

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”, then spend another half hour taking pictures after we were had finished, I would have hundreds of great shots like these. It’s when you are officially “not shooting yet” or when you are officially “finished shooting” that the best portraits happen with children.

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, this has been ideal.

At the end of the session I asked KC if there was anything else she wanted to try. Her sister was helping with clothes and stuff and KC said, I want some portraits with my sister in them.

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