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.

HELP PORTRAIT initiated by Nashville-based photographer Jeremy Cowart

I was reading my recent issue of Professional Photographer magazine and on the last page they have a new thing called “good works” where they tell about photographers that are giving back to those in need. The reason that I am posting this here is to pass along the idea to my many photographer friends who may read this blog. I was able to look up Dayton and there are about 4-5 people discussing ideas for Dayton already. I joined that group and I will see if I can participate in what they are planning. If not, my wife Patty suggested that she could find some people pretty easily through her connections as a teacher.

Here is the concept quoted from the first paragraph of the last page of Professional Photography Magazine Nov. 2009:

“Help Portrait has a simple premise–just connect. On December 12, photographers will grab their cameras, photograph people who cannot afford a portrait session, print the images, and deliver the prints to the subjects free of charge. That’s it. Pick a population. Take pictures. Give away the images.”

Here are a couple of links to the Help Portraits web site and some example videos that I found inspiring. This is not about making an event to promote any one photographer and it is not limited to professional photographers. Anyone who enjoys photography can participate in the project. In fact in the one video they show make-up artists and others helping in the project. Watch the videos and consider if you would like to participate.

http://help-portrait.com/#/about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3BFwgf1f2I&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9tu1XrBn3A

It’s easy to join the NING website to begin to connect with others in your area that are interested in this project. I was able to search for Dayton and found this discussion group already going.

http://community.help-portrait.com/group/daytonoh

Update: The group for Dayton is also now a GROUP on Facebook. If you want to help in any way visit the group page here:

Help-Portrait Dayton on Facebook

Home Coming 2009 Miamisburg, Ohio with Evan DeMott and Friends

I took a few quick pictures of my son and his friends before home coming at Miamisburg. Here is a link to the pictures: HOME COMING

Ideas for better group portraits and photos by Karen Smith Hupp

Karen Smith Hupp is a friend from High School. We used to be on the Arlingtonian School Newspaper where we went to school in Upper Arlington which is a suburb of Columbus. And of course I was one of the photographers. Facebook has been fun in that I am connected with people that I have not seen in years and that is fun. It has a feature where you can list your graduation date and school and everyone on facebook who has the same listing will show up so you can connect with old friends. Karen and I have had a couple conversations on facebook over the last several months.

A couple of days ago Karen sent me a note on Facebook asking for ideas that would help people take better group pictures. She was writing an article for a newspaper and needed some good ideas. I threw together a few ideas that I frequently use and sent them over to her. She told me they were just the sort of ideas that she was looking for and mentioned that she would send me a link to the article.

This morning I noticed that some folks had come to my web site from an online newspaper site. When I checked it out, it was Karen’s article quoting me several times and even including a link to this site.

You used several of my ideas and even listed my web site. Thanks Karen, that’s fun and cool. And, yes, those were some good times back in the day. If you are not on Facebook, it is growing by 10s or thousands of people every day and it is a great way to keep up with friends and family. Even friends you have not seen for many years.

Here is a link back to the article if you might be curious. There were some other good ideas for better group pictures that Karen used from other photographers as well.

South Maryland Newspaper Online.com

Here are two ideas that were quoted:

“He suggests telling them that you realize it might feel too close but that you need them to stand even closer. He adds you might need to show them by placing yourself next to someone, and rather than placing people shoulder-to-shoulder, place them like a fanned deck of cards or back to stomach, for example.”

and

“A group looks better when the heads are not at the same place throughout the image, and you can use a chair or steps to introduce varying heights, or place someone with one knee down,” he said.

And here is a recent family group portrait the shows both of these ideas. First I arranged everyone in such a way that their heads were at different levels, not straight across and all lined up. When you see group pictures where the heads are all at the same level, they look boring and uninteresting. After I lined everyone up so that their heads were not lined up, I asked them all to touch someone. Another great thing that happens when you do that is that EVERYONE SMILES. I forgot to mention that to Karen.

Sarah Wheeler’s Senior Portraits at Dancing Horse Farm

It was fun to create portraits of Sarah with her horse for her senior portraits at Dancing Horse Farm near Lebanon, Ohio (only about a half hour from where I am based in Germantown, Ohio near Dayton,  Ohio). Her mom and her little sister helped some with getting ears up. When shooting horses sometimes the most difficult thing is to get the horses attention. In this case, I think that Sarah’s arms were very tired from pulling his head up out of the beautiful green grass. I’ve done several sessions at Dancing Horse Farm including portraits like these as well as action photography of horses under saddle doing dressage. Here are some pictures of Sarah with her horse, but the last two portraits are her little sister who had been jumping around behind me to get the attention of the horse. I was able to sneak the shots before she could turn away. I think they are very cute. Sarah is in love with her horse and it shows in how she looks at him and leans into him for some of the portraits. I think everyone had a wonderful time and I think they are having a very difficult time not buying everything they see. Should I just show 20 images and make it easier for my clients to choose? I think not. I will just continue to make them work hard selecting their favorites.

Hey, are you taking pictures of ME?  I was able to take several candid portraits before she turned away. How cute is this? To see more portraits from Sarah Wheeler’s senior portrait sessions go to Sarah Wheeler. As a senior portrait photographer and an equine photographer I truely enjoy bringing both of those areas into one portrait. For truely unique senior portraits, wouldn’t you love to have your senior portraits for your cherished riding companion?

Kids can be such great fun and challenge to photograph

I like to take portraits of little kids, but I really like them to be natural environmental portraits. Sometimes it takes some time and experimentation before kids start to relax. One thing that I have to explain to parents it that they cannot participate in directing their children. Directions like, “Not that smile, I want to see teeth,” from a parent just makes kids more tense and nervous about what is about to happen. Kids like to play and that is when their most real and natural expressions come out.

Once they get used to me clicking off the shutter every couple of moments, then they stop with unnatural expressions and realize that nothing bad is going to happen to them. Sometimes I play with them by asking them to do something that may feel a little uncomfortable in order to elicit natural expressions. I asked this brother and sister to look into each other’s eyes. Of course when you are close to another person and looking into their eyes, you are going to start smiling. It’s uncomfortable in a good way.

Touch and whisper for great looking natural smiles

At our annual PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) picnic we were encouraged to come with our cameras to take some portraits of each other’s families. Toni Forgue was asking me about getting natural expressions from people. Two tricks that I had just learned from a photographers seminar came in handy. I told Toni I wanted to take some portraits of her with her husband. He sat down and crossed his arms. He looked comfortable and relaxed. I told her to put her arms around his neck in a comfortable way. Now, what was my trick to get Toni to relax? Her husband was already smiling because he was feeling connected to his wife. I walked up to Toni and said, “tell your husband a secret…whisper it in his ear, something private.” Click, click, click, click I captured the moment just right.

Tell me what you think. As a professional photographer sometimes you have to bring a bag of little tricks that help people become more relaxed and natural. How did this little trick work?

She said she didn’t like to have her portait taken, guess what she had a blast

I love it when I capture natural smiles and my subject genuinely has a great time being photographed. This young lady’s mom said, “she hates to have her picture taken”, however in no time at all she was relaxing and enjoying the session. What an absolutely great smile.