Photo Reiter header
Photo Reiter bio picture

Welcome

My name is Jay and I'm a photographer in Southern New Hampshire who specializes in...well, photography. I shoot weddings in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts - anywhere in New England or at destinations of your choosing. I do portraits, senior pictures, commercial, editorial and photojournalism. I also teach college photography classes. Pretty busy, I guess!

I've made my way around the country doing photography with stops in Maine, New York, Oregon and Minnesota. I don't have an accent from any of them but plenty of fond memories and great stories from each place and in between as well.

I've also got an amazing support system with incredible friends and an phenomenal wife, daughter ( both of whom are exceptional photographers) and son. Oh, and a dog, three cats, a bird and a guinea pig.

Who says I should have my head examined?

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 | Posted in inspiration, Personal Project, photojournalism | Tagged , , | 1 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

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 | Posted in Fine Art, inspiration, Personal Project | Tagged , , | no comments         No Comments | Add a Comment

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 | Posted in Personal Project, portraits, senior pictures, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

Student art – NH photo education

February 14, 2011 – 2:35 pm

One of the hardest things for many people is to step back from your work and see where its going. Most artists suffer from that myopic vision. Either you think your work is amazing, super important and you can’t understand why the phone isn’t ringing off the hook from galleries and clients – or you are so down on your work that its value and impact is lost in a sea of self doubt.

Its even harder to do when your teaching photography. Suddenly the works of 35 people are lumped into a mass of incoming assignments, helping kids learn the tools and terminology, trying to promote love affairs with light … the tsunami of working in a classroom.

I’m teaching two classes of photography to students at Great Bay eLearning Charter School in Exeter.

Since we’re working with digital point and shoot cameras, much of the technical aspects of photography are out the window – aperture and shutter speed concepts are only theory if you’re using cameras where those adjustments aren’t possible.

The impetus of the classes becomes providing an environment in which students are free – and encouraged – to experiment. Its about widening people’s horizons, expanding their vision and view of the world around them.

Its tough! Unlike teaching at a college level, not everyone in the class is interested in photography. So there are frustrations – but the rewards are huge. Especially when there’s a chance to step back and take a look at the overall work.

That’s what happened when I needed to chose some photos to be in the student art show. I figured it would be easy to pick a had dozen to be printed…after all, the work had felt pretty uninspired as the semester went along.

Wow was I wrong! Stepping back provided  window on some pretty fabulous photographs, and picking 6 became picking 25 – I just couldn’t edit it any tighter. A lot of good work was left out of the show ( a learning experience for me – next semester I’ll be far more prepared).

Here are a few of the photos that hung in the show. Would love to hear any feedback or comments.

By Jay | Posted in Fine Art, inspiration | Tagged , | 2 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

Zhen and John – Mass. engagement photos

January 25, 2011 – 9:38 pm

My usual deal is to include an engagement shoot as part of the wedding contract. Its a win-win situation. I get a chance to start a working relationship with a couple so I’m not trying to figure out what makes them tick at their wedding.

The couple gets used to being photographed and dealing with my personality. Additionally they get a start on a “family” album. So often couples have individual photographs but few of them together.

One of my wedding couples from this past year passed along my contact information to  Zhen and John. A few emails later and we agreed to meet in Gloucester to do an engagement shoot.
It was cold and windy – not cool, not chilly, but downright bone-crunching cold!
I had on my heavy winter jacket but Zhen and John were a couple of real troopers. They wore light sweaters, Zhen was wearing heels and scampering along the rocks better than I was! We shot at a few locations along the ocean, occasionally getting away from the water to hide from the relentless wind.
These are two people who are absolutely nuts about each other – heck, they did all the work – I just documented their total love for each other. At the end there were three pretty frozen but satisfied people ~ we all had had a great time on the shoot. The light was pretty flat and overcast but some post processing work added snap to the photos. I have to say that of everything we shot, my personal favorite was when Zhen jumped up on a stone, suddenly being taller that John and gave him a great big kiss in front of this beautiful stone wall of a building.
I processed it two ways – as a straight black and white and as a sepia tone.
Jump in here – what way do you like it better? Comments welcome!

By Jay | Posted in esession, wedding photography | Tagged , , , , , | no comments         No Comments | Add a Comment

Annie – NH senior pictures

December 15, 2010 – 7:04 pm

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.

By Jay | Posted in portraits, senior pictures | Tagged , , , | no comments         No Comments | Add a Comment

Portsmouth Pro Musica – NH portraits

May 20, 2010 – 9:46 pm

Most photographers cringe at the thought of group shots – so many faces to keep track of, how to manage getting everyone’s eyes open, everyone looking at the camera and  smiling, no hidden faces, no bad shadows on someone’s face. You get the idea. A veritable nightmare.

When I was a photojournalist I’d try to limit group sizes with justifications like ” There’s more impact with fewer people in the photo.”. Thankfully, it usually worked.

So the phone rang a while back – it was a business colleague wondering if I’d be interested in doing a photo shoot of a choral group. “No problem, I’d love to do it.”

Did I ask how large the choral group was? No.

Another small thing I hadn’t counted on – assembling nearly 100 people is no small feat – and it doesn’t happen very often. When it does, they’re ready for a concert…translate that into there’s not much time to shoot. OK, I’ll admit maybe I should have thought of that, but I was pretty consumed by solving the lighting parts of the problem. Did I call that a small thing – long live sarcasm!

Three days before the shoot the final details were worked out – I’ll have a window from 7:15 until 7:30 to shoot and then tear down my equipment before the doors are opened to the public for the concert! Suddenly I needed an assistant, one who knows how to set up big strobes, adjust them and tear down in a hurry. The choice was obvious – my 13-year-old daughter has been around lighting gear almost as much as me. She’s good and she takes directions and orders ( as long as its about photography…anything else, she’s even more stubborn than me!) After some intense negotiating surrounding pay, we struck an agreement  and I had my assistant. Good thing too because in the Murphy’s Law of Lighting, there was no electricity where I wanted to position two of the lights. I was so flustered I didn’t see the solution – she did, and not a moment too soon. We had time for 6 test shots to check the light, then 16 photos with the 97 members of Portsmouth Pro Musica, then tear down and run with our gear so nobody would crash into it.

Technically, the photo was lit using 4 large strobes, 2 alien bee’s and 2 profotos. All were set to full power, we managed shooting at ISO 400 at F/8 with an 80mm lens.

Absolutely a wonderful challange and a type of photo way out of the ordinary for me…and my assistant! We did catch a bit of the dress rehearsal/warmup. These folks are really good and I’d whole heartedly recommend catching them some night. Here’s a link to their concert schedule, http://www.portsmouthpromusica.org/concertinformation.html . Put it on your to do list!

Here’s one of the 16 photos we shot.

By Jay | Posted in commercial photography, portraits | Tagged , | 1 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

Lisa and Joe – NH engagement photography

May 11, 2010 – 4:43 pm

The forecast was for rain – cold, windy rain – and the plan was to do the engagement shoot at Plum Island next to Newburyport, MA.

Emails back and forth for three days leading up to the shoot – and finally at 8:30 that morning Lisa said, “Let’s go for it, no matter what.”

Now that is my kind of bride! We met at the entrance to the island, I stowed my truck and the three of us headed for the beach, much of which was posted off limits because the plovers are nesting right now. That didn’t matter – there were so many choices for great places to shoot we could have stayed there forever.

The rain never materialized, the temperatures weren’t nearly as chilly as predicted – though it wasn’t t-shirt weather – and we had a great time.

The absolute moment came when Lisa and Joe kicked off their shoes and waded into the water…yep, next was two people screaming their heads off…it is the North Atlantic after all … and they came bursting back onto the beach. Sadly or smartly, I didn’t get the picture of the reaction. Call me a wimp if you want, but I had stayed on dry land! I’d like to think it was a smart move.

Here’s some photos from the session.

By Jay | Posted in esession, portraits, Uncategorized, wedding photography | Tagged , , , , , , | no comments         No Comments | Add a Comment

Cody and Ryan – MA. engagement photography

May 5, 2010 – 6:36 pm

I do an engagement shoot as part of my wedding package – it gives us a good start on a working relationship, we get used to each other’s quirks and styles, and the fact is that most couples don’t have many pictures of themselves – lots of pictures of their partners, not many of them together. It’s a nice opportunity to get a start on a collection of “couples” pictures.

The conversation starts with defining a good place for the shoot – a place or environment that has some meaning. As a general rule, that’s a pretty easy process, but Cody and Ryan were stuck for ideas until they said, what about Wellesley College? Turns out Cody is a graduate and they spent part of their “dating” life in that environment.

What a great idea! The campus is beautiful. We hiked around the pond on campus – it was quite a trek since areas were still flooded from all the rains, then meandered through buildings and the chapel. One thing that struck me was nobody paid much attention to us as we shot here and there. Guess I’m not the first person to end up shooting portraits of a couple on the campus – we were as much a part of the landscape as the ivy-covered brick buildings.

Here’s a few photos from the day.

By Jay | Posted in esession, portraits, wedding photography | Tagged , , , , , | no comments         No Comments | Add a Comment

Shelby and Mark – Ma. engagement photos

April 28, 2010 – 10:07 am

The New England weather has been so topsy turvy this year – a mild fairly snowless winter, torrential rains and floods in early spring, then hot summer-like temperatures followed by cold, windy, drizzly late spring…those who think global climate change is a farce must have their heads stuck in the sand.

What’s that got to do with an engagement shoot? Well,  scheduling has been a nightmare – and I’ve totally given up on paying any attention to the weather forecasts!

Mark asked Shelby to marry him while the two were at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, so it seemed a natural place to do their engagement photos.

Forecast, warm, overcast, occasional rain.

Reality, like a fall day – bright sky, chilly and windy!

Shelby was a trooper – she had a jacket but was committed to being in a short sleeved shirt for the photos…Both she and Mark gutted out the temperatures while I was pretty toasty in a sweatshirt and jacket! When all was done, most of the photos I was holding her jacket, she never turned blue from the cold and we had a great shoot.

Here’s a few from the day.

By Jay | Posted in esession, portraits, wedding photography | Tagged , , , , , | 6 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment