Peter DeMott Photography » Smile

Fall portraits with color for seniors and families and children

Peter — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:14:06 +0000

Gone are the days of 95 degree heat with 90 humidity here in the Dayton area. Suddenly the crops and the trees are showing us that fall is here with small bursts of color. Because of the heavy rains over the last two weeks, the grass is all greened up again too. Good grief, I had to mow my grass twice already even though its cool outside.

Time for fall portraits with horses

If you have a horse and you want fall portraits, act now before they start getting their heavy winter fur. Actually, I’ve seen many great portraits with horses and their human companions when they have their winter coats. Cool evenings make for some more interesting clothing choices like sweaters and scarfs and hats. Perfect weather for something different for senior portraits as well with furry hooded coats, scarfs, and long-sleeved sweaters.

Time for family group portraits

Cool evenings make for some good family group portraits. However, the days are shorter so scheduled times are more limited.

Like the slogan of a major manufacture of athletic shoes

I was just talking to a woman today about having some portraits done. She has seen my work and knows she will love her portraits, but she dreads having her picture taken. My job is going to be to get her to relax and enjoy herself so that I can capture, not the stiff and fearful person, but the wonderful outgoing person that I know her to be. She even was considering canceling her session, but with some gentle prodding, and the “JUST DO IT” attitude she is going forward with the session.

So many families have very few portraits of themselves in relaxing outdoor environments and enjoying each other. Is it time for you to “JUST DO IT!” ? Time moves so fast in families and in no time you kids are going to be going off to college and starting their own families.

Peter DeMott Photography • peter@photosbypdemott.com • 937-478-6222

Casual family portraits and high energy little boys

Peter — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 21:15:03 +0000

I did some casual portraits for a family I know. They have two lovely girls and two young boys who were full of energy at the time of the session. I’d rather have high energy than tired and grumpy, but we had to come up with a way to focus their energy so that we could capture them in the portrait.

I asked Chris if he horsed around with the boys sometimes and after he said yes, I organized the family (without the boys) on the sofa. Then I told the boy, go climb on dad which the gleefully did do.

You can see more portraits from the session here: http://pdemott.smugmug.com/Portraits/Chris/15809800_umdxb#1185311621_CJQKu

• Peter DeMott Photography • Dayton, Ohio • peter@photosbypdemott.com • 937-478-6222

Photographing the times of our lives, families, friends, birthdays, gatherings…and more

Peter — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:00:01 +0000

On Saturday my wife and I went to Marshallville, Ohio to visit with her brother Mike and Sister-in-law Kathy. It was Kathy’s birthday and at the same time the Marshallville “history days” or some such celibration. Patty’s dad was there, her sister Pam, and Kathy’s parents were there too. There was a hot-rod show and I caught the last tractor pull of the afternoon. It was a good day.

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.

HELP PORTRAIT Dayton was fun and a great learning experience for all involved

Peter — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:19:17 +0000

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

Peter — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:33:05 +0000

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

Peter — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:11:10 +0000

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

Peter — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:32:51 +0000

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

Peter — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:02:03 +0000

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 with your cherished riding companion?

Peter DeMott Photography 937-478-6222

Kids can be such great fun and challenge to photograph

Peter — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:40:22 +0000

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

Peter — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:21:42 +0000

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?