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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Two models – one new, that’s my friend Ron in Franklin. NH and one young…but an old model. I’m so lucky to have Eliza always ( OK, almost always) ready and willing to let me photograph her.

So here’s a small collection of portraits that I’ve been doing.

That’s what happened yesterday when I went to Cory and Julie’s to shoot more of their baby daughter Nola. My sense was that I would still concentrate on just the baby, leaving the photos of the family for later. Babies change so dramatically in the first few months that I wanted to make sure that those changes were documented. Julie was in a bit of a panic – where should we shoot, what should she wear… – which is so unlike the lady who is so cool during the mad dinner rush at Zampa. I guess it’s about being a seasoned chef as opposed to a first-time Mom. But I was certain that this would be a baby session, not family photos.

So, to try to get her to slow down and breathe, I just suggested she sit in the chair in the dormer and relax. The light was incredible – and I supplemented it just a touch with a snooted strobe off to the side.

The rest of the shoot was anti-climactic for me. I was so excited about this photo – and its really unusual for me to get “the picture” at the beginning.

Goal – photos of Nola. Result – uneventful.

Surprise – this photo of Mom and daughter in a world of their very own. Result – one very happy photographer!

Julie and Nola 4.22.09

They and an ever-growing number of other Moms would meet – the Dads were in charge of childcare those nights – monthly or more often.

We became very close friends of Angela and Carlos, our daughter and their’s were friends and it was one of the big losses when we left.

A year after we landed in New Hampshire, the Herrera’s came to Boston – a friendship renewed! When Angela called to see if I would do a family portrait this year, I was honored beyond belief. We had a great time wandering through the woods in Cambridge – and happened upon a set of abandoned railroad tracks which was the high point of the shoot. Here’s a few photos from the shoot.