Photo Reiter

Time can really get away from me – just realized it has been 6 months since a blog post. Hate to make that admission, but its true!

Had a good senior picture season, I’ll start off with Annie. Whoever said teenagers can’t get up in the morning haven’t met Annie – we met at hampton Beach early one fall morning. She and her Mom brought one of their horses. While Mom was tacking up the horse, Annie and I wandered off along the beach and dunes. It was one of those cold fall mornings, the sun fighting a battle with the clouds – not really providing much warmth but creating beautiful light.

Once the horse was ready we switched gears and shot Annie with the love of her life. The horse was a bit freaked out by the sand – and Annie decided riding him probably wasn’t the best idea ( although her mother jumped on and galloped through the water, great sight!).

The icing on the cake was a flock of geese flying through the photos as we sat on a jetty – couldn’t have asked for a more inspiring sight.

A bit of post processing work to emphasize the colors of the light and here’s some of the shoot to share.

Another senior picture – they are so much fun – but the story of Claire’s shoot is really different. Claire wanted to shoot at the beach. We picked a beautiful day, of course so did a ton of other people! It was one of those “fleeting days of summer quick let’s get in one more beach day” scenes along the New Hampshire coast.  Oh yea, it was pretty breezy – not hurricane-force winds or anything like that but Claire has really fine hair that a whisper of air moves…I was wishing I packed hairspray as part of my kit since the blowing hair was totally distracting to her. We finally found a piece of beach with few people and some protection from the breeze. We were shooting and getting OK pictures but nothing that was really singing.

So, here’s part 2 of the story. We are guilty of being judgmental, I think its part of being human. But the stereotypes and judgments really get heavy when it comes to money. I spied a really neat home above the beach, great steps leading to it, and a woman enjoying the day from a lawnchair next to the porch. The porch had these great rockers, nice light…so I asked her if we might use her porch for a senior picture shoot, thinking maybe she’ll let us at least use the stairs.

Guess whose stereotypes were thrown out in a hurry – she said “Of course”. Then said  why didn’t we move a rocker off the porch onto the patio for a better view of the ocean! Her generosity made a struggling shoot come alive and helped produce a photograph that is just so Claire!

You know who you are…Thanks so much for both your largess and for reminding me that I am guilty of my own brand of stereotyping.

Here’s the photo and a couple others.