Photography by Michael Rotiroti: Headshots, Events, Portraits, Commercial, Fine Art & Athletics in Boston
Sports Photography in Boston and on the North Shore
College and high school sports, shot across Massachusetts in gyms, rinks and stadiums where the light is almost never on your side.
Sports Photography
Most of these frames were made close to home: the field hockey pitch at Endicott College in Beverly, the floor at TD Garden for MIAA state finals, the sidelines at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Harvard Stadium in Boston, and the Ivy League fencing championships at Harvard in Cambridge. The photograph at the top of this page, the Endicott Gulls celebrating in the fog after the Commonwealth Coast Conference championship, took first place in the Sports category of the Boston Press Photographers Association college contest. Other frames in this grid took second place, third place and honorable mentions at the BPPA in 2018 and 2019.
These were shot on Canon, a 1D X, a 1D X Mark II or a 5D Mark III, mostly with the 70-200mm and the 24-105mm, often at ISO 1600 and higher because that is where the game usually is. Click any photograph to see the camera, lens and settings behind it. New athletics work is shot on the Sony a7 IV.
Sports is not on the current booking menu, but the work is here because it is where a lot of this came from. If you have a game, a tournament or a season in mind, email film@michaelrotiroti.com and tell me the date and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.
Product Photography for Boston Brands and Small Businesses
Bottles, headphones and small electronics, lit on black, on grey and on reflective surfaces until the label reads and the highlight lands where it should.
The photographs here show Maker's Mark and the red wax seal on its neck, Glenlivet 18, Gnarly Head, milk pouring from a metal pitcher, Beats Solo headphones, an iPod Nano and AirPods in an open case. Product is the discipline that forgives nothing. A reflection either falls in the right place or the frame is wrong, so the lighting gets built one source at a time.
Most of these were shot on a Canon 5D Mark III with the 24-105mm f/4 or the 70-200mm f/4, stopped down between f/8 and f/14 at ISO 200 or lower, so the whole label holds sharp edge to edge. Click a photograph to see the settings.
Product is not a service I book on its own any more, but these frames show what the lighting kit does with a small subject on a table. Where it still comes up is inside commercial work, as part of a shoot day rather than a session of its own.
Portrait and Headshot Photography on the North Shore
Headshots, editorial portraits, senior sessions and family work, made in Boston, on the North Shore and on location.
The portraits here include Dean Harvey Young's final headshot as dean of the Boston University College of Fine Arts, photographed in the Stone Gallery at 855 Commonwealth Avenue, a BU student violinist made for the Carnegie Hall Spotlight concert, singer-songwriter Lucy Wijnands in Yonkers, studio fashion work shot in Beverly for an independent magazine, and University of Rhode Island seniors on campus in their stoles.
The headshots were shot on a 50mm, a 24-70mm or a 24-105mm, mostly between f/3 and f/5.6, so the face stays sharp and the room falls away behind it. The dusk frame by the water in Hastings-on-Hudson is flash balanced against the last of the daylight, which is how both the sky and the subject survive in one exposure.
I photograph on-location corporate headshots, in-studio headshot sessions, editorial portraiture, event coverage, commercial work, and fine art across the North Shore and Greater Boston: Peabody, Beverly, Salem, Danvers and into the city. Every new session is shot on the Sony a7 IV. On-location corporate headshots run $200 an hour and editorial portraits $175, each plus a $150 kit fee for the strobe and modifiers; a personal in-studio headshot session is a flat $500 for two hours with a 30-minute consultation; event coverage is $150 an hour with a two-hour minimum and no kit fee; commercial is $800 a day plus production costs and gear. A 50 percent retainer holds the date. Email film@michaelrotiroti.com with the date you have in mind.
