old pic, new use

Shot this one a long while ago (I can tell based on where it’s stored– I now have six hard drives connected to my computer and this was on the FIRST one) but recently had a request from the model for this and several other shots of her from fashion shows. It’s sort of fun to check out my old work– some is good and some is pretty gnarly bad. And just in case you see this post Autumn, I should have everything done for you by early next week.

Okay, gotta add my little rant about ANTM here. Tyra is such a freak! I’ll overlook her very obvious weight gain and her freakish fake looking hair and creepy “come to mama” comments. What I’m talking about is how on the show last night, she told the remaining contestants that they better learn how to deal with the cold because swimsuit photos are shot in the wintertime. She left this part out– swimsuit shots are usually done in MIAMI in the winter. So it’s not exactly “winter” as most of us would think– it’s 81-degrees F in Miami today for example. Better learn how to deal with that cold, eh?

Anyway, my vote goes to Karidee at this point. Too bad I’m not on the judging panel.

Pete Springer, ice cold photographer, Portland, Oregon

it’s back!

Got my 70-200 back today– you know, the lens made famous in such photos as this (my ol’ business card):

It’s truly a wonderful lens when it’s working properly. I read over the repair invoice and I’m not sure if it’s fixed (I’ve seen online reports it requires a new IS circuit board). It looks like they replaced and cleaned something else though. Thankfully, the repair is under warranty. But boy oh boy would I hate to have to ship it back and wait another two weeks.

Canon repairs are relatively painless though. Two weeks total from the time I shipped the lens off to them– it goes to a place in California, not Japan– and I got it back. That’s a very decent turn-around.

I squeezed off a couple of shots at lunch and the lens appears to be working fine… my fingers are crossed.
fashion portland oregon

pools, palm trees, and warm weather

Hard to believe this was just last month– granted it was a thousand or so miles south of here– but the local forecast here is for freezing rain tonight! No swimming for me right now.

I’ve been working on a variety of projects in the evenings– it’s amazing ’cause I haven’t been booking shoots but I’m still scrambling to keep up with photo requests and post work on older shoots. At the same time, I’m working on marketing myself, learning new gear/software, and trying to rework my business plan. It’s a full-time job without the hours to do it in!

I had hoped to design some sort of calender for this year too, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. How do other photogs keep up? Oh yeah– most of them don’t work a day job other than photography!

Pete Springer Portland Oregon photographer

vegas glam

Alright, started in again last night on the Vegas shots from last month. They are pretty glammed out. I’ve finished the desert shots and now have a lot of pool and palm tree shots to sort out.

It’s funny ’cause I was shooting these at 250th second to get the sky all crazy and one of the mentors suggested I switch to 60th sec so I did. I actually like my 250th sec more– the sky is a lot darker and more dramatic like this shot.

Yeah, this looks similar to a previous shot– it’s from the same series. This shower was actually next to the pool and the key light is a reflector held by a guy from Joplin, Missouri. Thanks Willy!

Well that’s your glam fix for the day. More to come– I have mixed feelings about my batch o’ Vegas pics this year. I definitely liked the batch last year more– but I had a thousand times more fun on my trip there this year.

Pete Springer Photography

finished another project

Finally wrapped up this fashion shoot project this weekend. The hardest part was narrowing down 51 of my favs to 15 shots to post on my website. I often have trouble editing down photos but I’ve heard several times now that I need to cull the photos on my site better.

You can decide yourself (in my first blog-only-reader exclusive access). Here’s the 15 I selected (this gallery is public):

edited shots

But here are the 51 best photos I culled the selects from (and this gallery is available only to blog readers who found this link):

all photos

Okay, thanks for reading.  And make sure to check back– I try to update this blog every weekday.

Pete Springer Photography

Getting a chance to dig through some old files and add/update the landscape/scenic shots on my website. This here is off the west coast of BC, Canada, shot of a ferry from a ferry.

Check out the landscape galleries on my website for updates this next week…

pete springer landscape photography

family & the holidays

Shot a couple of photos before and during Thanksgiving dinner. Here’s an attempt at getting everyone (left to right, me, mom, dad, wife) serving.  Gee, wonder what I’LL look like as I get older?

Anyway, it’s a bit difficult to set up an umbrella & light, meter, get everyone in position, hit the self-timer, and get in place myself! I was trying to be fast and shoot one shot only ’cause everyone wanted to eat!

My wife made a fantastic apple pie (yeah, apple– it’s a nice twist on the pumpkin tradition) so I tried a hand at food photography. Guess I better not quit my day job just yet… shot with an f1.8 at ISO 1600 to create the limited depth of field.  It’s a 50 mm lens on a 1.3 crop cam, so the options for wide angle are pretty limited.

Nothing like a little ham with your apple pie, eh?

Alright, one more family pic. I wanted a little more directional lighting– single umbrella and strobe. Again, I shot ONE photo of this set-up– so there wasn’t much chance to fix the obvious problems. It’s tough to photograph a bunch of hungry people when they’d rather be eating!  And I only had one light with me, so the options were limited there too.
Pete Springer

geeky-tech talk

Okay, only a couple more pics from this shoot to go. I was distracted last night by pizza, beer, and a new Vogue so I didn’t get as much post-processed as I had hoped.

So I don’t tech-geek out here too much I hope but today I’m feeling a little tech-geeky. So if you’re not into cameras, you might want to skip this.

Dell is offering 15-percent off a 5D, then another 15 off that price. Combined with Canon rebates right now, which give you another $600 back on a 5D too– that’s nearly a grand off the price a couple of days ago! So the question is, Is Canon going to introduce new models that blow the socks off the 5D and 1D series in February (big photo show that month)? And what would do that? New processors, more mega pixels, dust reduction vibration, and internal IS? For the same price?

There’s a lot of wondering going on right now– is a FF, 12 mp compact DSLR going to be a worthwhile investment? What about the 8 mp kick-ass (for now) 1D mk2n? Does the AF speed and 8.5 fps justify the investment– or will Canon bump up the performance this next time round? And what’s the ideal balance between megapixels and hard drive storage? Yeah, we’d all love to shoot everything at 30 MP but where the fuck would you store all that data?

It’s amazing to think just five years ago these questions would have seemed far out and impossible. What will the next five years bring? And… what’s the best way to sell old equipment, purchase new equipment, and keep up with the technology without getting fleeced? At least I’m not into the medium format gear– those poor photogs gotta upgrade $30,000 backs every couple of years.

The shadow on the above shot is killing me… I wish I had lit it differently. That’s an advantage of shooting tethered, I guess. You can study your shot on a monitor. But as someone who shoots without an assistant, shooting tethered can be a real pain in the ass to set-up. My prefered method would be to add another light in this setup to bring out the clothing more and lighten the shadow. I actually lightened it quite a bit in post using a cool RGB curves dealie I learned this past weekend, but it’s still not ideal.

Pete Springer fashion photography portland oregon

busy, busy, busy

Almost done with this set of photos… here are a couple I really liked. Lighting is a strip-dome on the radiator and a octabox camera right. The reflection on the windows was terrible and I had to mess around a lot to get rid of it.

Okay, I ALWAYS forget to shoot my lighting set-ups but I did get one shot from this shoot. It’s obviously not what I was using for the above photos, though.

So what’s been keeping me busy, busy, busy? On Sunday, I spent a day in an ASMP sponsored workshop on PSCS2. I was hoping to learn more about compositing/extractions, but it was more about the new features in CS2. Still worth while, and I learned a little more about retouching with the healing brush that should come in handy. I’m also anxious to try out more with the warp tool. And the vanishing perspective (or whatever it’s called) sounds fun too.

Then, yesterday I added a portfolio side-scrolling gallery to my website. You can see it here:

my portfolio

It still needs some fine tuning and I’m not sure if those are the exact pics I want, but for now, it works. This is a feature I’ve long wanted and many, many thanks to Mike Lane who helped me tremendously with the CSS. I basically had to plug-in pixel values and mess around in web-developer to make it work. Thanks again Mike!

Oh yeah, and based on a DPR thread, I started to process my RAW files using  Canon’s DPP processor rather than Adobe’s Camera Raw.  It seems to do a better job and of course adds an extra step.  I like the tonality of Canon’s conversion better than PSCS’s.

Pete Springer fashion photography Portland, Oregon

Some photos just look better in b & w. It’s funny because most people know everything these days is shot in color (or RAW with color possible) so I’ll often get a request for a color version of one of my b & w’s. Yeah, some digi cams let you shoot in b&w (including the 20D) but those are the jpegs. You’ll still get a better b&w from converting.

I actually use a LAB conversion and curves to get my b & w’s, though many others do it with channels.

Anyway, back to those requests… I’ve even had studio shots I specifically lit and planned as b&w’s be requested as color shots.

So here’s the dilemna, when someone asks for a colorized b&w, do I lie and say the shot was a b&w jpeg and there’s no color version available? Be a jerk and say, “Nope, I’m an artist and I’ve determined this photo is better in b&w”? Digital has improved many, many aspects of photography, but always being able to produce a color photo (for RAW shooters) is not an improvement in my opinion.

Some shots just work better in b&w.  Some work better in color.

Yeah, there was another version of this photo but it was a portrait shot. I like the landscape format better for this look. She still has the chopped off leg but at least the eye is sort of draw across the photo (least that’s the way I see it).

.
Okay, better close this rambling post today with another b&w. Obviously I’m still working on my Helmut Newton style.

Pete Springer fashion photography Portland, Oregon