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Monthly Archives: January 2010

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Tubing and boarding – winter sports photography

January 27, 2010 – 8:12 pm

I’ve spent a few mornings recently standing in snow, wind, and sub-freezing temperatures shooting activities at the Amesbury Sports Park . It’s hard to hide the fact that it was pure fun, so why try to hide the fact. The facility has always been known for its great tubing runs and lifts, but this year they added a new lift – it’s not unlike a moving sidewalk at an airport – and a junkyard terrain park. The junkyard park has semi-buried tires, culverts and anything else that forms the beginnings of a jump for skiers and snowboarders.

Me? I got to walk the terrain park, lie down and let boarders sail over my head, dodge tubes coming down the hill at nearly 40 miles per hour, and convince a couple of tubers to hold my feet so I could shoot as we hurtled down the slope.

The park, which is open Thursday through Sunday is an amazingly good time…flying down hills and you don’t have to hoof it back up! They are minutes off I-495 in Amesbury, Massachusetts, and well worth the drive, though if you can slip away during the week there will be less waiting in line to go down again. You ask me, it’s a must-do this winter, no matter what your age.

And if you see me there ( I’ll be the tall guy in the red coat with a camera and no gloves), wave…I just might take your picture!

By Jay | Posted in commercial photography, inspiration | Tagged | Comments (1)

A new decade – NH portrait photography

January 7, 2010 – 7:29 pm

Wow…2010. A whole new decade, starting off with people undecided how to say it. Is is twenty ten or two thousand ten…or does it really matter?

I was going to post a look back at the last decade, but its pretty overwhelming when I think about the fact that at the beginning of the new millennium – remember the big scare with Y2K – well on New Year’s Eve I was in El Paso, Texas, having just covered the Sun Bowl and people were afraid to fly because they thought all the onboard computers might crash. So I spent New Year’s Eve alone in a hotel room waiting for the next day to fly back to Oregon. Spending New Year’s alone was no big thing – its never been my favorite night, but the digital camera I was using was an issue. Quite simply, it was a piece of junk! Worse, I really had no idea how to massage it to do what I needed – I knew nothing about white balance, using image editing software or the like.

A year and a half later digital cameras had taken a quantum leap forward, I had a clue what I was doing…and I found myself driving through the Columbia Gorge enroute to a new job in Minnesota.

There was no lack of news the next few years: the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Paul Wellstone dying in a plane crash. Exciting times in the news business, wonderful times with amazing photographers in the Twin Cities, awesome friends and neighbors. But it was, when all was said and done, Minnesota.

In the middle of the decade digital cameras took more quantum leaps…and I returned to New England, this time following my wife. Her father was in poor health and it fell to her to be the caregiver. Not a bad decision – New England’s a great place to live, I had serious quality time with my father-in-law before he passed away, had a great run teaching college until the school closed ( hopefully not because of me!), became my own boss with the start of Jay Reiter Photography, found a summer home at Charles River Creative Arts Program.

Yea, the first decade of the new millennium was pretty amazing…makes me wonder what’s next. Digital cameras are taking yet another leap, the newspaper world as I knew it is virtually no longer, I’m still in New England being thoroughly modern with a facebook account and everything… Oh, and my daughter has blue hair…and I love it!

By Jay | Posted in Personal Project, inspiration, portraits | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Cayla ~ NH theater headshots

January 5, 2010 – 8:29 pm

Just before Christmas I was commissioned to do some photographs of Cayla for a theater production she’s in. Seems like the East Coast has finally caught up with the west. The requirement used to be straight-on black and white photos – mug shots really. Now its either color or black and white, the personality of the subject is expected to come across in the photograph, and the deer-in-the-headlight stare directly into the camera is out.

Cool!

Cayla has one of the leads – she’s Rapunzel in the Stephen Sondheim- James Lapine production of Into The Woods. The musical features a conglomeration of fairy tale characters – Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Baker and his wife, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel…and of course, an ugly and wicked witch.It’s playing at Seacoast Repertory Theater in Portsmouth, NH Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from January 8-24.

I’ll be there – and according to Cayla’s Mom, it shouldn’t be missed. Never argue with the mother of an actress – get tickets and go! More information can be had at Seacoast Rep’s website, www.seacoastrep.org.

Here’s Cayla.

By Jay | Posted in portraits, theater headshots | Tagged , , | Comments (0)