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Category Archives: Personal Project

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Last photos of 2011 – NH landscape photography

December 31, 2011 – 1:17 pm

Crazy light this last day of the year – at 6:45am it’s still dark with a foggy overcast. Heading out with the dog for his morning run, grabbed a camera knowing the light was too cool to pass up.

Fog is ever present on the trail – slow, slow shutter speeds but still shooting wide open, my favorite combination for shooting. Old and familiar all look different in this light, a light that happens rarely – even more rare to be in a spot to work with it.

No music on the way in, just the sounds of my steps on the frozen ground, the dog running silently through the woods. At the swamp its eerily quiet – no birds, no color, all life seems to have gone south or burrowed into a cave.

Walking back, now listening to Osher, seeing new light as the rain starts.

What a beautiful way to end the year…and prepare for a new one.

Happy New Year everyone.

By Jay | Also posted in Fine Art, inspiration | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Baby Owls – wildlife photography, NH

May 24, 2011 – 11:40 am

So not all wildlife rehabilitation is about animals tangling with motor vehicles – and getting the short end of the deal.
Got a call recently from my wildlife buddy Jane Kelly – she was returning a fledgling barred owl to its nest – apparently the little ball of feathers had ventured out too far … and fallen 30 feet to the forest floor.
I didn’t have to pause for more than a nanosecond before asking for time, address and thank you very much, I’ll be there!
I’ll admit I’m not usually a sucker for cute, but this baby owl clicked its beak at me and I was in love! After the owlet was returned to the nest – and a modification made to prevent the little guy from falling out, I was up the ladder shooting photos of the owl – and sibling in the nest in the tree.
Mom was about 50 feet away in a tree watching my every move – I never did see Dad.
After, everyone left but me. I found a place to hide ( so I thought) where I could wait and get a photo of an adult returning to the nest. A few hundred black fly bites later it was too dark to shoot, so I walked back to my car. All I heard was the wingbeats as Mom returned to the nest to reconnect with her babies…and, I’m sure, celebrate my leaving her woods!

By Jay | Also posted in inspiration, photojournalism, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Two girls revisted – Maine portrait photography

April 21, 2011 – 11:35 am

Hanging out the other night with my two favorite girls, my daughter and her best friend, who is almost my second daughter. I have photographed these two young ladies so often, never get tired of shooting them either. In Maine, an old farmhouse, needing a coat of paint, but what a wonderful environment for some photos. Light going fast, cloudy overcast end of the day light. First processed them in color until I realized these photos were made for black and white.

Remembered when I never shot color, saw only in black and white…sometimes still do, but thinking don’t see that way enough. Love that the content and composition become what the photo is all about, no getting diverted by pretty colors. Texture becomes color, what a wonderful way to see.

By Jay | Also posted in portraits | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Barred Owl – Maine nature photography

April 18, 2011 – 9:49 pm

Sometimes when opportunity knocks, you actually get a second chance. Last week I got a phone call from a volunteer at the Center for Wildlife; she was going to be releasing a saw-whet owl. Unfortunately, I was in the throes of the flu and had to watch the chance go by without me. I was more than  a little bummed out. I have always had a fascination for raptors – at one point in my life I even investigated what it would take to get a falconry license. Needless to say, I didn’t have what it took!

Saturday she called again. “I’m releasing a barred owl Monday – are you interested…and over the flu?”

Interested – you bet! Over the flu – I wasn’t going to let a lingering cough stop me this time. Family in the car, phone call to some good friends who I thought would be interested in seeing the release and off to Maine. We got to the release site a few minutes before the beautiful owl was to regain its freedom – it had been in rehab since being found laying in the road in November not far from the release site ( I think the choice of release location was anything but an accident).

Jane Kelly, the volunteer, handled the bird as familiarly and gently as I handle my dog – confidence exhuded from her as she removed it from the carrier used to transport it, showed the bird off for a few pictures, then with a flourish set it free.

The owl flew to a nearby maple tree, landed and surveyed its circumstances for a few minutes, then flew to another tree, rested there, then on again. I was struck by the bird’s  camouflage – had I not seen where it had landed I never would have noticed it.

Makes me wonder how many owls I’ve walked right past and never known they were there. And thanks to the efforts of the Center for Wildlife in York, Maine, there is at least one more raptor alive in the Maine woods. Now if only I can learn to spot them in the wild.

By Jay | Also posted in inspiration, photojournalism | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Spring…finally – NH photography

April 7, 2011 – 9:39 am

Walked a snowmobile trail through the woods with my dog yesterday – a little squishy underfoot but the snow is finally gone. 52 degrees feeling like 70. A few beech leaves still clinging, even though they’ve been subjected to the winter winds that howl through this areas.

Felt so nice to just wander with the camera and dog, starting to dream of putting the jackets and boots away – and hoping the snow is finally behind us. It was a really long winter, so ready for spring.

By Jay | Also posted in Fine Art, inspiration | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Fast photos – senior pictures NH

February 21, 2011 – 11:01 am

I’ve started this blog post about a gazillion times – usually I’m pretty focused about what I want to say – but I’m thinking this time I’m trying to say too much and it keeps coming out as jumbled mush.

So I’ll just cut to the chase – here’s a selection of senior pictures I did at Great Bay Charter School. Unlike the ordinary senior picture shoot that involves going to the woods, beach or some other exotic location for a few hours, these were kids that needed senior pictures done, were at or near ( or past!) the yearbook’s deadline, and had to be done in 5-6 minutes each.

Oh, and one student who I just wanted to photograph so I convinced her to sit for a couple of minutes – she just made me promise not to ask her to smile. No problem there – I never ask subjects to smile.

I keep getting trapped in verbiage – it seems as hard to stop this post as it was to start it – enough already! Here’s the photos.

By Jay | Also posted in portraits, senior pictures, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Second Shootr – a must have app; NH portrait photography

March 21, 2010 – 4:20 pm

I recently got an iTouch – too many calls when I was in a situation where I’d say ” Don’t have my calendar with me, can I call you back in a few hours” – not a great way to do business. I wanted my calendar and my music ( as constant companion as my dog Sid) in the same gizmo, I’m a committed Mac user, so the touch seemed like the way to go.
And, in case you’re interested, no, I wasn’t interested in an iPhone, for a ton of reasons starting with AT&T and ending with unlocked iPhones are just way too expensive for my blood. But I digress!
So I got the Touch and working really hard to resist “App Madness” I only looked at apps that could have a positive impact on my photography…so I loaded on a sunrise/sunset calculator, a weather service, all my music…and took a look at apps that could help me manage my photography business.
I looked at a lot, but it all came down to two words – Second Shootr.
In a nutshell, I honestly don’t know how I survived without it. To say its a data base of client information really short changes it. It certainly is that – holding phone numbers, email addresses, addresses all in 1 convenient location. But it also holds all those little notes that invariably get lost – like after the initial client conference you want to remember that detail photos make her very happy or her sister is a blinker or bring dog biscuits because otherwise you’ll be mauled by the family dog – there’s a place for all those notes, a place where you can put down who the gatekeeper of the invoices is so when you desperately need the check you know who to call.
Second Shootr started out as an app for wedding photographers, but the new version has expanded categories so its easy to customize it to all your photo business.
The key is it comes from Plinkk Photography in Hampshire, England – the husband and wife team of Tim and Helen are photographers so they know what  photographers need – and didn’t sugar coat the app with any unnecessary bells and whistles.
The only down side – inputting 20 or so jobs at once is a royal pain – but once you get caught up, its a snap to stay current.
Green too – no more a need to print a bunch of emails with directions, gallery passwords, cell numbers – its all there. And here’s the frosting – they ask for feedback so they can keep making the app with what photographers want! They answer emails…QUICKLY, and all the data gets backed up on iTunes so should your iTouch or Iphone ever need to be reformatted, the data is all streamed back in in some mysterious way from cyberspace.
You know what I think…best 7 bucks you’ll ever spend – forgo a couple of lattes and grab Second Shootr in the iTunes store – don’t have an iTouch or IPhone…that’ll cost you a bit more.

Here’s a link to their website , check it out.

Oh, since this is a photo blog, there needs to be a photo or two … so here’s a couple of photos I did of Eliza – lit only from the light off the screen of her iTouch ( a birthday present – she got one before me!)  and one starring  the alpha cat of the family – Boo, all 18 pounds of him.

By Jay | Also posted in apps, portraits | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Afternoon reading – NH portrait photography

February 11, 2010 – 1:59 pm

There’s a million reasons why having a teenaged daughter is simply ( OK, not simple at all) the greatest experience, but one of the overlooked ones is getting to know her friends. It stands to reason that an amazing person will hang out with other amazing people and my daughter is no exception to the rule.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Helena. She and Eliza have a playdate weeekly after school. Last week Helena was dressed in anything but typical teenage fashion – she looked like a refugee from a movie set about colonial days – and I wasn’t far off. She had dressed in period garb to be the visual presentation for another classmate who was presenting a project set in colonial times.

Helena didn’t care that she wasn’t in modern-day dress down mode, she was quite comfortable in her costume. When it was time for Eliza to go to a meeting, helena opted to wait for her Mom at the house and settled into a chair with a book. As the daylight decreased she turned to make use of the window light to read by and I quietly ran to grab a camera – the combination of the light and costume made a visual treat.

Here’s Helena, reading after school.

By Jay | Also posted in Cornerstone School, portraits | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Winter morning – NH fine art photography

February 3, 2010 – 4:40 pm

Eleven degrees, wind gusting to 45mph, wind chill around -15….bleary eyed, coffee brewing, wind blew the door open last night, no wonder the house felt so cold

Look out the window, watching the branches sway, rock and roll actually – big limbs still even in the wind gusts, smaller ones doing the dance though. The sky that intense shade of blue that happens at the false dawn, more intense than can be named or if there’s a name I don’t know it..reminds me of being out on the water duck hunting years ago, hearing the birds but not quite seeing them, remembering just how cold cold could be.

WOW its so incredibly beautiful….quick, camera, tripod, memory card…not going out, set it up on kitchen table…shoot few frames…long exposures which I’ve been meaning to play with lately…not even concerned about shooting through the glass…just the need to make some frames, can I capture the mood, the cold, the intensity?

Coffee’s ready – good to be alive!

By Jay | Also posted in Fine Art, inspiration, Uncategorized | 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 | Also posted in inspiration, portraits | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)