Trails End Equestrian Center Barn Door Mini Sessions at DLSC show

These are  a couple young ladies that I hope will become the subjects of some of my senior portrait sessions with horses. These are from mini barn door sessions that I took while at the horse show at the Trails End Equestrian Center which is a couple miles down the road from my home.

It’s fun to get professional portraits of kids with horses. At these shows and stables, kids can enjoy horses in a very controlled environment that is fairly safe. Kid’s, children and horses, with great smiles, you can’t beat that.

Sometimes I shoot the local horse shows in the DLSC (Dayton Local Show Circuit). Here are the participating farms:

http://www.trailsend.biz/dlscorgs.html

and the schedule of shows

http://www.trailsend.biz/dlscshows.html

Participating Farms and Stables Listed here. Come and join the fun.

Dancing Horse Farm – Lebanon – 513-933-0343

Greenstone Stables – Germantown – 937-859-1835

The Riding Center – Xenia – 937-767-9087

Shelby Farm – Centerville – 937-886-9230

Stillwater Pony Club – Beavercreek – 937-426-9443

Trails End Equestrian Center – Dayton -937-835-5062

Wetherbrook Farm – Waynesville – 937-885-6328

Whitehouse Stables – Sidney – 937-492-3831

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 ontwitter. 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.

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

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.

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.