Photography by Michael Rotiroti: Sports, Product & Portrait Photography 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.
The kit is Canon. Almost everything here was shot on 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.
If you need a game, a tournament or a season covered, I work out of the North Shore and shoot across Greater Boston. Photography runs $80 an hour plus a $200 kit fee, laid out on the services page. Email film@michaelrotiroti.com and tell me the date.
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 shoots happen in a studio or on location in your space, across Greater Boston and the North Shore. Tell me where the images are going, a website, a menu, a wholesale sheet or a paid social campaign, and I will light and frame them for that crop. Rates are the same as the rest of the photography work, $80 an hour plus a $200 kit fee. Email film@michaelrotiroti.com to talk it through.
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 headshots, senior portraits, editorial portraits and small family sessions across the North Shore and Greater Boston: Peabody, Beverly, Salem, Danvers and into the city. Sessions run $80 an hour plus a $200 kit fee, and a 50 percent retainer holds the date. Email film@michaelrotiroti.com with the date you have in mind.
