It’s been raining for 3 or 4 days straight here in Dayton, Ohio. The days have also shortened up such that by the time I get home from work, it’s already getting dark outside. It sort of puts me into a photography funk.

At least until there is a freezing rain or some nice white snow outside. But for now it is just gray and muddy.

What do you do to bring yourself out of a photography funk?

One thing that I am doing is working out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week. I’m trying to fight back against that dull tired feeling that sometimes comes over me when its rainy and dreary, cold and dull outside.

My Barn studio is finally taking shape

In addition I have invested in studio lighting equipment that is due to arrive very shortly. My barn studio will soon be a place of learning for me. Terri Johnson, who used to be a very active photographer her in Dayton, now works with me at Multi-ad selling incentive direct mail advertising. She still holds on to some of her equipment, but it is mostly in a storage building. She still loves photography, but just does not see making a living at it any more. Things changed so fast with digital that she got out of photography as a career. She will be helping me to learn studio lighting.

I also have some local photographer friends that I’ve met in PPSO who are giving and selling me some backgrounds to get started with. I will invite some of my photography friends over to play in the new studio some evenings and perhaps invite a student model to help us out as we learn and experiment together.

My barn studio has a long way to go – My winter project

It is still just a shell of white walls and concrete floor. The fluorescent lighting is harsh and needs to be changed out and it needs some color, paint and some repairs and finishing out. I have to clear out some old furniture that my kids (now in college) brought in for their Garage Band and video game get-togethers that they used to have when they were in high school. I’m hoping to have the energy to actually get some work done over the winter (I’m hoping my working out will give me new energy to work hard all day and come home and play even when it does get dark too early).

This summer when the days are bright and unending, I will migrate outside and start to build and plant landscaping that can be backdrops for portraits. My goal is to be able to walk someone around and take portraits then move into the studio for some additional poses and different looks. Instead of being very slow all winter long, it can become a time for experimentation and learning. I will offer studio and on-location sessions going forward once I have a good understanding of studio lighting. For me photography has been and can be a lifelong learning endeavor.

So, my question to you is what do you do when the weather gets gray and dreary and you feel like you are in a Photography Funk?

I’d love to hear what you do. I think I will go exploring now to find some portrait photography inspiration that I can post about. But, while I look around, I would love to hear from you who love to take portraits and pictures. Click on the comments and leave one.

Related posts:

1. Hocking Hills Ohio, a vacation in wonderland and lessons in photography
2. Jeff Smith says,”Could be your photography sucks” in his blog post
3. FEO group (For Each Other) an outgrowth of Dane Sander’s Fast Track Photography book and training

As I said in my last post, I had entered 7 images into the competition. Last night two of those seven prints were judged to be merit prints. There were approximately 50 entries along with 5-6 album entries. Out the fifty or so prints it seemed like there were about 15 or so that achieved merit status. I did not keep tabs on the exact numbers of anything. Each print was scored then one or more of the judges would comment on what they liked and didn’t like about the print. If the judges scores were more than a few points different, then either the low scoring judge would challenge the higher scoring judge or the higher scoring judge would challenge the low scoring judge. They would discuss their differences and then re-score the print. Sometimes minds would be changed and other times the scores would stay the same.

Here is one of my entries that achieved merit status. It is framed in black in a horizontal format to fill the monitor screen during the judging. Suggestions to improve the score on this image (perhaps to a higher merit status)  included completely removing the picnic table and cloning out every small stray hair on the subject. The title of the image was, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.”

I found that sitting through the judging of 50+ images was very instructive and challenging as I knew it would be. This is one of the many ways that PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) encourages its members to become better photographers each day. If you are a photographer in SW Ohio (from Troy to Dayton, from Dayton to Cincinnati and throughout the region) I would encourage you to consider joining this group or a similar group in your area. The web site is currently being rebuilt (sorry for the mess) http://www.ppso.org You can also email me with questions if you like.

Last, if you are a photographer and you have entered your work into judged competition, was it a learning experience for you? Were you able to watch the judging? Please comment below (or click on the “leave comment” link near the title.

Related posts:

1. Jeff Smith says,”Could be your photography sucks” in his blog post
2. PPSO June all day workshop by Ken Kneringer PPA Master Photographer
3. Senior Portraits in Snow, Horse and Rider Portraits in Snow & Family and Kids in Snow

http://jeffsmithbooks.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/could-it-be-your-photography-sucks/

Like Jeff, I believe that many people pick up a camera and think they can instantly become a professional. It happens so fast that in many cases they don’t know how bad they really are, but it can also be their business practices are really bad too.

Tonight I will get to see what two PPA certified judges think of 7 of my portraits. I am hoping that some will be graded to have “Merit”. However, I will hear everything they say about each image and I am sure their thoughts may cause me to regroup and try even harder in the future. This is one of the values of being in a professional organization like PPO and PPSO. These judges will hold nothing back. They do not know whose photographs they are judging and they will not care if their constructive criticism or perhaps low point score will hurt my feelings. Their goal is to be as objective of the qualities of merit images as possible. It’s not my mother or my wife or my friend saying, “Oh yes, I think it’s a pretty portrait.” I’m a big boy and I can handle it and I plan to grow from it no matter how scary it is going in.

I offer my clients a 100% refund if they are not happy with the results of a photography session with me. They can have a re-do session or I will even give their money back, whichever they prefer. So often I see new photographers with little confidence offering their services at very low prices because of their lack of confidence OR in order to assure that they not get criticized (If someone pays $4 for an 8×10 what are they expecting?). Very poor quality can be accepted when the prices are far below professional rates.

Far better that new photographers would work on the quality of their product until they can command professional rates BEFORE they start charging customers for work. Slow down a little and work on your product until it IS of professional quality, then keep on improving THAT each day as you go forward.

If you are not ready to have people who don’t know you judge your photography, perhaps you would do well to purchase some of Jeff Smith’s books and work on improving the quality of your work. I think I have three of his books and their should be a DVD in the mail right now. I consider photography to be a profession where you can always learn more and be challenged and grow.

Wish me luck. I will post any images to make the grade in the days to come.

I love to hear comments from photographers and clients. Just click on the Leave Comment link near the title or at the bottom of this post, there may be a leave comment box.

Related posts:

1. One of my favorite photography blogs by Jeff Smith photographer and author
2. FEO group (For Each Other) an outgrowth of Dane Sander’s Fast Track Photography book and training
3. Megan models for the Senior Portrait photography workshop

If you keep trying to get good portraits of your horse and are frustrated because they never turn out as good as you would like, or if you have a friend or family member that wants some portraits of them with their horse, these 5 tips can help you capture much better portraits. Even if you know little about horses, I explain why these tips are important for better horse and rider portraits. I hope that you will consider commenting at the end if you find these tips helpful and informative.

1.) LONGER LENS: If you want horse and human, horse and rider portraits you can be proud of, it is important to use long lenses and stand back a good distance from your subjects. Why is this? It’s because horses are large and long animals and there will be distortion of the conformation of the horse if you are close in with a short focal length lens. It is not a problem with the lens, but a problem of perspective. When you are close in with a short lens, you will see that the horse will have a BIG HEAD and tiny bottom. Have you seen those cute puppy portraits where the photographer uses a very wide lens to create these really cute puppy portraits with the eyes or the nose of the puppy REALLY BIG and the body is super tiny. That is exactly what I am talking about and I see it all the time. However, it does not look cute on a horse. A horse with a large front end and a tiny back end is deformed, bad breeding, terrible conformation.

So, you want to stand back 20-30-40 feet and use a lens not shorter than 150mm. Many pros use the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens and for portraits keep the lens at between 150 and 200mm. Longer is good as I know many pros that shoot certain breeds with 300mm lenses for the best look and conformation of the horse. I see so many horses for sale photographs that are taken with short lenses from 5-10 feet from the horse. Based on the look (really bad conformation, BIG HEAD and teeny tiny bottom), I have no idea how these horses would ever sell. If you want top dollar for your horse you need professional photographs that are taken by someone who understands the importance of good conformation for that breed.

2.) QUICK REFLEXES: When taking a portrait of a horse and rider, I explain to the person to relax and look at me. If they watch the horse to see when his ears are perked forward, then look toward me, it will be too late for me to get the shot. By the time they look at me the ears will be going in another direction and the moment is lost. To get ears perked forward and bright alert eyes I have someone behind or next to me do things that will get the attention of the horse. For a good portrait of the horse it is important that the horse look alert and interested with ears perked forward and eyes bright and open. If someone has sqeeky toy or a tupperware with some grain inside I explain that these will only work for a short time and not to do anything with them until I am fully ready. Then I give the signal. The horses ears perk forward, I click the shutter and capture the very quick moment. Inevitably the person in the portrait then looks up at the horse whose ears are already going every which way and thinks…oh, well that is not going to look good. But, they don’t realize that in that 1/1000 of one second I did in fact capture the ears of the horse perked forward (there are 1000 moments in one second if the shutter is set at 1/1000 of one second and 35/1000ths later when the person looks up at the ears can be a very long time after the image is already captured). Of course if you are shooting with a small point and shoot camera that has a delay when you click the shutter, this becomes exceedingly difficult to accomplish. By the time you push the button and the camera shutter finally clicks, the horse’s ears will be facing another direction – I guaranty it. – but keep trying and take lots and lots of pictures and you may get lucky.

3.) GROOMING AND TACK: This is really before the other two, but those are critical and this is esthetic. Of course you want to groom the horse and brush off dirt and grim, but if you bath the horse it is important to give time for the horse to become dry before the session. If you take pictures of a wet horse it will look like a wet horse. Next you want to have the nicest lead line you can find, not the bright orange rope lead that you like because it is easy to find in the grass, but if possible a leather lead or at least a rope lead that is a solid color (black, brown, white) so that it does not become a distraction from the image. Another nice alternative is a CLEAN leather bridle and reins. This can also help the person have more control of the horse during the session. Nothing detracts more from a great horse and rider portrait than a ratty lead.

4.) WATCH YOUR BACKGROUNDS: One thing that truly differentiates a snap shot from a professional looking horse and rider portrait is a clean uncluttered background. Sometimes this can be a tricky thing as when I visit a farm for a farm call portrait session sometimes there will be old rusty gates or perhaps semi repaired sections of fence around the barn yard. But, by taking some time and walking around I can find a better background opportunity. I look for foliage that creates a shaded darker background for the portrait. I want my subjects to be the most important part of the portrait and if you take your portrait with a bright background your eye is drawn to the brightest part of the image and drawn away from your subjects. Ideally we find a wooded area where I can shoot the subjects in open shade (in the brighter part of a shaded area) and have the background in the deep shade. In addition I like to use a large 52″ reflector  with feathered light onto the horse and rider. This adds catch lights in their eyes and brings up their brightness by one or two stops again darkening the background and making them stand out better in the image. One more thing you can do to eliminate a distracting background is to use a wider f stop on your lens (lower number) like f 4, f 5.6 for example when using a long lens these will soften the focus of the background significantly.

5.) GOOD COLOR AND GOOD LIGHT: As I mentioned in #4, I frequently take portraits of horses and riders in open shade. But, if you want good portraits you need to have good color too. If you leave your camera on auto white balance, you may end up with portraits that seem very cool because shade picks up the color of the sky and is cooler in color than bright sun or you may pick up a color cast from the foliage or the red barn near by. To get good color, I use a color target from PHOTOVISION.com. These targets help me check exposure and provide a center stripe of perfect gray for color matching. I always take portraits in RAW so that I can use the dropper when processing the images to click on the perfect gray portion of the target which gives me great color for my images (not green-reflected from the foliage, not blue reflected from the sky, but nice pleasing warm images with accurate color) If you don’t have a tool of this type, then you will need to either take a custom white balance of the scene (read your camera manual about how to do this) or adjust to feel when processing the images (It is very important to have a color balanced monitor in this case and you may be tweaking for a long time to get a good accurate color).

So, there you go. Now go out and take better equine and rider portraits. Don’t forget that fall is a great time to hire a professional equine photographer for portraits of you and your equine companion. I am available evenings and weekends for farm calls in SW Ohio including Dayton area, Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, and even as far as Columbus and Indianapolis. You can call me at 937-478-6222 or email me using the CONTACT page on this web site. To find an equine photographer in other areas of the country go to the Equine Photographers Network and look at the portfolios of photographers there (If you will go to my home page, you can click on the equine photographers network logo at the bottom of the page to take you there)

If you have some tips you would like to add to this post, please feel free to add them with your comments. If you appreciate having this type of post and found it helpful, please comment about that as well. Near to title at the top of the page is a link “Leave Comment or Comments”.

Related posts:

1. Senior portraits with horse and dog and even donkey
2. Senior Portraits in Snow, Horse and Rider Portraits in Snow & Family and Kids in Snow
3. Early Fall is another great time to have horse and rider portraits made in Ohio

I am also part of PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) which is a sub chapter of PPO (Prfessional Photographers of OHIO). This is a more diverse group including photographers that work mainly with senior portraits, family portraits of all kinds, wedding photography, and even nature stock photography.

Learning and growth are the key to both groups and I find both groups challenging and helpful.

In the FEO group, I was completely impressed with one young couple making their way in wedding photography. I thought I would share some about them to introduce you to them. Also, at this time I do not do wedding photography at all and for those of you in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus looking for young energetic and creative wedding photography, these two are outstanding.

Braum Photograph is made up of Cameron and Mindy Braum.

Cameron does some beautiful blogging on his web site. The site is easy to navigate and definitely shows off their talent and creative flair.

This is the first blog post that I looked at, but he already has another one up. If you want to see more from these folks go up to the menu item BLOG and go through hundreds of outstanding photographs from many weddings throughout the region.

http://blog.braun-photography.com/post/1121321841/amanda-brett-dover-wedding-photography

As a professional photographer it is critical to keep learning. Complaining about competition and problems with the photography business these days does nothing to help you improve and grow. Join an FEO group or other professional photography organization and start attending the meetings.

Related posts:

1. Dane Sanders to visit the Dayton area author of Fast Track Photographer
2. Jeff Smith says,”Could be your photography sucks” in his blog post
3. Megan models for the Senior Portrait photography workshop

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.

Related posts:

1. Fall portraits with color for seniors and families and children
2. HELP PORTRAIT Dayton was fun and a great learning experience for all involved
3. Casual family portraits and high energy little boys

If you would like a play session portrait session for your child, please give me a call and we can have a phone consultation to discuss your ideas to capture the true nature of your young one. The session can be here at our farm, at any near by park, or at your own home. Dayton, Oakwood, Centerville, Springboro, Fairborn, Huber Height, Vandalia, Englewood, where ever you are we can set up a time that works for you and for me.

Peter DeMott

937-478-6222

Related posts:

1. Fall portraits with color for seniors and families and children
2. Outdoor child portrait session – Children have such cute expressions
3. With Spring showing itself it’s time for a free portrait session contest in Dayton

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.

Related posts:

1. Photography funk…what to do when days become gray and too short in Ohio?
2. Jeff Smith says,”Could be your photography sucks” in his blog post
3. Megan models for the Senior Portrait photography workshop

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.

Related posts:

1. PPSO June all day workshop by Ken Kneringer PPA Master Photographer
2. Sarah B.- Senior Portrait Photography Session on location at Cox Arboretum near Dayton
3. Lovely senior portrait session with Jennifer McElveen senior at Miamisburg High School

JUNE 7th, 9am to 9pm at Cox Aboretum and Gardens in Dayton Ohio

This is for all my photographer friends in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. We have an all day workshop planned with Master Photographer Ken Kneringer at Cox Aboretum and Gardens meeting center here in Dayton, Ohio. The ALL DAY seminar is only $99 for non-PPSO members ($110 at the door) and I have heard not only that Ken is an outstanding Senior Portrait photographer, but that he is an outstanding teacher.

I am attaching the flyer here, but when this posts to facebook it may be too small to read or use. If you want me to email the pdf to your directly, just send me an email and I will send it right out to you ( peter@photosbypdemott.com ). I saw Ken a couple of years ago and his one hour presentation was packed with information. I cannot wait to see what I have in store to learn from an all day HANDS ON seminar including: the formula that has made him one of Indianapolis’s most sought after senior photographers, lighting and tools to create images that today’s seniors are after, and his photoshop post processing and retouching tips.

I’m sure you will come away with great senior picture ideas for girls and boys, ways to make senior portrait sessions fun and exciting for senior students, and many unique senior portrait ideas that sell.

Lunch AND Dinner are included in the price. You cannot beat that. Come and join me with many other professional photographers as we learn together how to grow our businesses with senior portraits and how to give our senior portrait clients the pictures and poses they want.

You will enjoy this Photography workshop in Dayton Ohio. Along with learning the business of senior portrait photography from one of the best, you will learn senior picture poses, senior portrait lighting, outdoor portrait poses and lighting, and you will have the chance to network with photographers from all over the region.

Hope to see your there. P.S Please click on the share buttons below to get this out to your photographer friends too.

Peter DeMott Photography • 937-478-6222 • peter@photosbypdemott.com • Member PPSO and PPO

Related posts:

1. Megan models for the Senior Portrait photography workshop
2. PPA certified judging at PPSO print competition
3. Surviving as a professional photographer in a down economy