Kristen’s senior portrait session Animoto Video

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

I just remembered that this embedded video will not show up when this goes over to facebook. Here is the LINK to the YouTube video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA2__fOMahQ

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.

Taking better Snow pictures

I’m not sure if this video link will work, but it is funny. It is a Balimore weather man talking about the snow that is coming this February 6th, 2010. Click on the link and see if if works and have a chuckle before I give you some tips on taking better pictures in snow.

Baltimore weather man

With so much heavy snow throughout the region I know that photographers will be out in droves trying to take some lovely snow pictures and portraits. Horses in the snow, kids in the snow, trees covered with snow and everything else will be photographed by everyone who enjoys photography. Many will be frustrated with their snow picture results. My professional friends, people who just got a great new digital camera for Christmas, and people who just take a few pictures now and then will be wondering if their camera broke.

Why are my snow pictures always so dark? I don’t want any more gray snow pictures

Camera meters which determine the amount of exposure that comes into the camera are based on average lighting situations. In most average situations 18% gray is what your camera wants to record. There are some dark areas, some lighter areas and some mid-tone areas in almost every image so your camera sets the amount of light exposing the film or sensor to that reading. The problem with snow pictures is that they have very little mid-tones and dark areas. Most of the image is white with snow. Your camera although quite sophisticated does not have a brain of its own and needs a little help from you. Without your help it will do what it knows to do and create an average 18% gray image. Your snow pictures will not have white snow, but will be VERY underexposed and dark. With digital cameras underexposed images also show a lot of noise or grain and so not only will your snow pictures be darks, but they will also be murky.

What is the solution to my dark, murky snow pictures?

Since you want your snow to appear white in your pictures, you have to take control of the situation and make some adjustments. The solution is fairly easy. If you are on one of the automatic exposure settings, that’s fine. You can stay there, but you need to find a menu setting called EXPOSURE COMPENSATION. Usually it is a little table with a plus + and a minus – sign showing. The normal setting is “0″. You need to tell your camera you want MORE LIGHT even though it may be very bright outside with all that snow. Remember, your camera wants to create an 18% gray scene so it will set the camera shutter speed and aperture to allow less light in turning your snow to 18% gray. Now more gray snow. Move that compensation setting to +1 and give it a test. Still dark? Then move it to +2 and take another test image. Oops, too bright (if you have your highlights warning on you will see the snow flashing in red perhaps), then try +1.5. Good, that looks great.

What should my HISTOGRAM look like?

If you are used to checking your histogram to confirm good exposures, you will be used to something that looks something like a bell curve. There is some data showing on the left and a big hump somewhere in the middle and then some on the right. A big hump in the middle USUALLY works good, but not with snow images. Average images show up that way because they are average with some dark areas, lots of mid-tones and some bright or highlight areas. With snow you do not want your histogram to look that way. With an image that is dominated with white snow, you histogram will be a hump toward the right of the graph. In fact it will be a big hump and very to the right of your viewing window. However, you don’t want it to be up against the right wall of your histogram. If your histogram looks like a graph that would continue to the right (not a spike or a hump but a wall), then it is likely you have over compensated and you will lose some detail in the bright areas of your image. If you have an image program like photoshop, you are welcome to drag these two images to your desktop and check the histogram of both. The dark image below has a middle hump histogram. The correctly exposed snow picture show a spike or hump to the right (the brighter side of the graph).

Histogram of darker image showing most data in the middle. Most of the data is toward the middle of the histogram where your mid-tones would normally be showing. What that means is that your camera is recording your snow as a mid-tone and you will have gray snow :

Below is the histogram of the image with proper exposure for snow images. Most of the data (the snow part of the image) shows up on the right side of the histogram where the white part of your image should register:

This last histogram shown below is overcompensated. You are too high on the plus + and the highlights will be “blown out” which means that the data about the texture of the snow will be lost. Do you see what I mean by the data is up against the wall of the right side of your histogram. There is more data to the right, but it is off the graph and is not being recorded by the camera. It is lost information and you cannot fix lost information.

Here is the image that you would normally get without compensating for all the bright snow. This is the first exposure and histogram example:

Below is an image with exposure compensation of +1.5 set on the camera before taking the picture. Remember, if you don’t make the change, your images will be very under exposed and this cannot be corrected with your image program because it will look murky and noisy from the lack of proper exposure. This is the second histogram example.

Manual mode as an option

Some folks like to know exactly what their camera is doing all the time and they want to set all the exposure settings manually. However, the outdoors is not a studio where everything will stay the same. One minute there may be an opening in the sky and it could become much brighter. Another minute another brightness level. If you are in full manual mode, you will need to be checking frequently for changes in the amount of light in the scene. Personally, I would prefer to be able to concentrate on my subject after once making the adjustments in the camera to correct for all the bright snow. BUT, if you are a die-hard manual shooter, just overexpose by one or two stops and check your histogram to make sure you are not clipping the highlights.

LAST—Big caution–YOU MUST DO THIS–Remember this!!!!!

When you are finished shooting in a snowy scene. YOU MUST SET YOUR CAMERA COMPENSATION SETTING BACK TO “0″. If you leave it at plus +1.5 then when you encounter a more normal scene all your images will be over exposed.

I hope this helps you to have some great photography fun in the snow and get spectacular results. Go out and take some pictures and make some comments here.

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.

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

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.

Become a Friend or a Fan or both on Facebook

I have a friend page on Facebook (Peter DeMott) and I have my business page on Facebook (Peter DeMott Photography) which is called a Page. With my regular facebook you can become a friend (as a friend I can tag pictures of you and they appear on your wall).

On my business Page you become a fan and I can send you promotions, discounts, coupons, and seasonal specials and events. I will be posting seasonal specials and discounts on my fan page from time to time along with samples of my work. If you become a fan, these specials will post directly to your Newsfeed or perhaps your wall, I’m not really sure. In either case that’s pretty cool because it gives me a way to offer specials to those who have an interest in my photography.

I have facebook friends all over the country and the world through my connections to photographers and others that I have gotten to know. It’s fun to share my photography with other photographers that I have “friended” through seminars and other forums.

I also do a lot of photography at my church, Fairhaven Christian Missionary Alliance Church on Whipp Rd in Centerville Ohio, and I like to post photo albums on my facebook friends account to share those. Facebook has been a great way to get to know people in this very large and growing church.

Last of all, I am learning more about networking in my advertising sales career here in the Dayton area. Part of that is to really get to know folks on a more personal level and I ask business friends to “friend me” on facebook so that I can get to know them better.

Back to my photography business facebook fan page. Right now I am offering a year end limited time discount to all my fans. This offer is for print purchases, not sessions. As my fan list expands I will continue to make limited time offers using the new coupon feature of the online company that prints my portraits. When I do a portrait session my clients can view their portrait proofs online and order photographic prints, canvas prints that look like works of art, and they can even order products like t-shirts, and various other items. Now that I have a coupon feature this sounds like a perfect thing to use to the benefit of my valued customers through the fan page on facebook.

If you have an interest my my photography and would like to join my photography business fan page just go here and click on the “Become a Fan” button: Peter DeMott Photography

Thanks, Peter DeMott

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 Christmas is a wonderful way to be in the mood for Christmas year round. Since the portraits were taken in their own home, they will also have a more special meaning. I also took some in their formal family room without Christmas decorations showing.

I showed them a stretched canvas print that I had made for one of my senior high school student portraits so they could see what it might look like as a canvas print. It can make portraits like these into wonderful works of art. I also like to show samples so that people can understand size a little better. The canvas print that I showed them was 16×24 which is a nice starter size for framed display on a wall. It is very common for people to think that an 8×10 or 11×14 is a large wall portrait, but those are considered more for desk and bookcase display and usually look very small once held up to a wall. I even lend various sized print samples to people to allow them to hold them up where they intend of making their display so that they can see how various sizes appear. It is not something that you can do from memory. It’s kind of like bringing paint samples back from the store to hold up against various pieces of furniture to make sure they compliment what you already have.

This is Pam and Andy.

This is their lovely family.

The other images from the session can be seen here: Pam & Andy Family Portraits

What do you do if someone “hates” to have their portrait taken

As a photographer here in Ohio doing senior portraits, equine portraits of horse owners with their horses, and children and family portraits I have found a couple of things helpful in making people more relaxed in front of the camera.

1) Most of my work is location photography so I am at a park or home or stable chosen by the person I am photographing. Whenever I feel that someone is becoming uncomfortable we change up what we are doing. In a park, we walk to another location. At a stable we do  some walking shots with the horse and owner. Moving around is a great way to help people feel less confined and stiff.

2) As I am shooting, I look at the back of the camera and comment about how great the person looks, and that I am getting some great stuff. These are honest comments based on the fact that I have captured some great images with relaxed smiles. Sometimes it’s good to ask them for “no smiles for now” and that takes the pressure off them trying to be so perfect, then a little joking and on comes that perfect relaxed smile.

3) Working on location I shoot with a long lens. I have a 70-200mm F2.8 lens that is my work horse. Because I am not in a confined space of a studio I can shoot from a very comfortable distance of 15 – 25 feet away.

4) Rather than move people around much, many times I demonstrate the approximate pose that I want them to take. Then I say can you do that for me? If it seems awkward I suggest that they strike a pose that feels comfortable to them, then I can fix little things with some simple instructions.

5) Sometimes a little activity can take a persons mind off having their picture taken. At the PPSO picnic we asked this young lady to sit on the swing and just relax and do whatever she wanted. As I was shooting, I was commenting on the back of my camera. The combination of the distraction of the swing and the frequent comments about how lovely the pictures were turning out created an atmosphere where she could be herself, have fun, and provide us with great portraits.

6) I like to shoot portraits at my slow motor drive speed and fire off several shots in a row when expressions are changing naturally. Later I can pick out the images that, to me most accurately depict the persons natural expressions.

Leading a Photographic Life, learning to live a creative life.

I was again listening to a podcast called The Candid Frame by Ibarionex Experello (available free on iTunes) and for the 12/6/09 episode there was an interview with Chase Jarvis. Chase is a well known younger photographer who has created quite a buzz with his discussion of the BEST CAMERA. The best camera being the one you have WITH YOU. I believe he has an iPhone app called BEST CAMERA and a blog and perhaps a book about this idea as well. He is also a very well know commercial / advertising photographer with many national and international clients.

In any case the discussion was about leading a photographic life and learning to live a creative life. It made me want to look over some pictures that I have taken and just share them here. I decided to look through my 500 GB drive and look at some memorable images and share them here. These are all recent images when you consider that I have been an avid photographer since I was in Jr. High School many, many, many years ago. So, since I have not taken any pictures for a couple weeks, here goes.

First, here is a picture of my home in winter. I’ve been thinking about it more as I think more about my country barn photography studio. Right now I don’t have a studio, but when we built our new horse barn we build in a large room and upstairs room in it so that some day I could make it into a portrait studio. It’s just not as fun right now to take portraits of people when the trees are bare, the grass is brown, and it is 16 degrees outside. With a studio I could take indoor studio portraits and shoot year round.

When I was in Jr. High School and High School I carried my camera everywhere I went. Now I carry my camera much less, but when I do the opportunities abound for a creative life. Chase’s challenge was to take pictures everywhere and use the camera you have, your cell phone camera. Almost everyone has a cell phone camera now and it is a matter of taking the initiative to get it out and use it where ever you are. I thought this was an interesting challenge and it just made me think of memorable images and pictures that would never have happened had I not had my camera with me. These next images were not taken with my cell phone camera, but they are memorable images from the recent past which I thought I would share.

The next four images are from the Peace Point Endurance Ride. The first image is in the morning before the endurance ride started. The photo of the children became the cover image for ENDURANCE NEWS, the publication of the American Endurance News Conference. The other is a point in the day when the water was reflecting the riders as they entered the river first to let the horses drink, then to cross past me as they continued to compete. One rider was using a sponge to cool her horse. She had great technique as she would drop the sponge in the water and bring it back up into her hand using a string.

The next three images are from two different vacations that Patty and I have taken in the past several years. They represent the beautiful places and the beautiful people we have encountered. It seems to me that I see many beautiful people and places where ever I go, however on vacation I make a particular point of recording the images. These make me think that I should be wearing my camera more often the way I used to when I was young. One picture is of a dance demonstration. Another is the wonderful place we stayed. and last is a fun exchange with a street vendor down the beach from where we were. It was fun to see this man and my wife interact as she expressed and interest in some of his wears.

I hope you enjoyed my little visual vacation. Pictures and portraits can bring back strong memories. I think that is why I enjoy taking pictures and portraits so much. This podcast challenged me to keep my camera more handy and if it is not available to use my iPhone to record images. It also made me want to start work on my country barn photography studio soon so that I can lead a photographic life, a life of creativity.

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.

Next Page »