some eye candy

Alright, I spent FAR too much time whackin’ & hackin’ at my myspace site last night. Far too much time. It’s still not aligned properly, but it looks better than it did. And I’m up to 83 BILLION (yup, billion) friends thanks to some cool CSS I ran across online.

Anyway, once I dragged myself away from that absolutely frivolous activity that consumed me for hours on end– I really wanted to work on some pics so I dragged out a couple of Las Vegas images. Duane has modelled for Playgirl and I shot him on a balcony in Vegas in October. I was playing around with composition– I’m usually not a fan of tilted shots but wanted to play around here.

I’m not sure if it works– anyone else have opinions?

It’s weird too because PSCS3 seems to be pixelating my edges when I downsize to the web. I absofuckinglutey love the new version of ACR– my conversions rival Canon’s DPP. But I sure don’t feel like converting than opening in CS2 to downsize (and most sharpening plug-ins are only for CS2 at this point too). Guess there are benefits and disadvantages to beta software, eh?

Pete Springer photographer portland oregon

more KY

Some more KY pics today. When you walk into the horse farm museum, there’s this lifesize horse hanging overhead– it’s pretty damn cool. Sort of like a flying horse.  But of course it’s meant to show horses being unloaded from ships.

Outside are bricks with the names of dozens of horses. It’s like Pioneer Square in PDX– only the names are all horse names.

There’s lots of limestone in KY and they build some pretty cool fences– no mortar– just stacked. The fences built like this are very cool looking.

The horses, though, still are fenced in by wooden fences– most of them painted white.

Anyway, if you’re ever in Lexington, KY, I can highly recommend the Kentucky Horse Farm for a visit. It really does give a good sense of the importance of horses in not only Kentucky, but life and history in general.

But of course– real life these days requires cool trucks, not cool horses– as my nephew Noah can attest. His truck is pretty cool– flashing lights and siren and even working windshield wipers– but I have to say, the Tonka trucks of years ago do seem a lot more solid. They were metal, the new ones are plastic.

Finally, another natural light shot. Thanks Steve for being such a sport and striking a pose by the xmas tree!

Pete Springer Photography

kentucky

Spent the solstice in Lexington, KY with my wife’s family. Here are a couple o’ pics. We went to the Kentucky Horse Farm one day and saw all kinds of cool horse related items– including horses!

I shot almost everything natural light during my visit. Except the following shot. I found it was easier to get candid shots without the big ol’ strobe.

Anyway, the horse farm has a pretty cool museum that covers every aspect of horses and humans– everything from use in wars to hunting to racing to polo. It’s very cool. And there is a selection of derby trophies that is jaw dropping. This is a row of Kentucky Derby trophies.

And what trophy is complete without a self-portrait?

And yeah, we obviously spent a lot of time indoors with family. Here’s one of my favorite shots– grandma reading to her grandson (had to shoot at ISO 3200 and f2.8– it was dark indoors!)

I like this shot too:

And of course this is another cute one (bob the builder safety glasses):

But… here’s my absolute favorite shot from the trip. It was a really quick grab just as we were sitting down to xmas dinner. This was the first time Noah got to sit at the table for xmas dinner, and you’ve never seen a happier kid. The next morning, he even came into the dining room to look at the table where he had eaten xmas dinner. Aside from that, I just love the energy and candid nature of this shot– I shot several more during dinner but never captured the spontenatity of this shot.

Thanks everyone for allowing me to shoot so many photos throughout the weekend!

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

bird watchin’

Went out birdin’ with a guy earlier this week for my day job. Snapped a couple pics for the day job website while I was out there. The one above is my fav– it’s a birdseye view of the birders.

Anyways, it’s fun to get a chance to shoot something new. I shot this series in like a minute in only one spot– would have been fun to get to play around with some different locations and perspectives. Maybe I’ll have to do a bird watchin’ fashion shoot?

Pete Springer photography

stat ho’

Some people are myspace whores. Myself? I’m a web stat whore. I’m always checking my stats. See the screen shot above? A whoppin’ 62 total website hits Sunday– yet today that total is already over 700– and it’s not even the ‘busy’ part of the surfing day (evenings) yet!

Interestingly, the boutique who put on the show earlier this week (subject of my previous blog posts) posted a myspace bulletin link to my site today. Damn– say what you will about myspace and that dumbfuck owner Rupert Murdoch, but ain’t no denying the amount of people who frequent that site. It took me a LONG while to catch on to that– but just this week I began myspace networking and so far, I’m very happy with the results. Even have Britney Spears as a friend!

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

fashion show done

Couple more of my favs from the show Sunday. Finished up and posted everything last night.

The ‘halo’ here is from dragging the shutter (I shot the whole show at something like 1/50 sec).

Alright– as always, you can see the rest on my website under fashion shows.

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

fashion show

Shot a show last night and tried something new– a ‘fun-foam’ homemade diffuser for the flash. I also only shot one camera body, with the 24-70 attached. I wanted desperately to shoot with two, but I stopped myself so I would learn the limits/benefits of the fun-foam. No bracket, for one!

No red-eye either. The light is a lot softer and more subtle than a blast of flash, that’s for sure!

Here’s what’s kind of screwy though– there was no program for the show so I have no ideas about designs, models, or hair and makeup.

Loved the look of this model– I bet with good studio lighting I could create some stellar pics of her. These are basically grabs– you get less than a second to snap some of these shots during a show.

And I didn’t move around during the show– I made a point to simply nail the runway walking shot like this and didn’t really try for variety.

Love this shot too– I was trying to time my shots so the movie screen was the backdrop on their heads– not the best backdrop but better than a lot of clutter.

More pics coming and more on my website:

Pete Springer fashion photos Portland, Oregon

20D for sale

Selling off a 20D body– click over to my website and e-mail me for details if you’re interested. I’d prefer to sell it in-person to someone in the Portland-area. Expect to pay slightly less than ebay or craigslist– for a body in better condition.

This was a back-up/second body and probably has 2000 shutter actuations total. In other words, this baby is almost-cherry. Includes battery, charger, software and everything else that came in the box, and the original box itself.

pete springer

marina

More designs by Libby Smith of Miss Libby Ann

I like the beach shots more due to the harsh light in the marina shots, but there are still some decent photos in this batch.

So last night I watched Britian’s Next Top Model– it’s basically a season of top model crammed into two hours. It’s done much more documentary style than ANTM and much more subtle. They also use a lot of words like “knockers” and “snoggin’” and the accents are great. Some of the talk is subtitled (even though it’s in english)!

The British version is also very rough around the edges– the judging room for the final contestants in Milan, for example, looked like a hotel conference room with a shower curtain for a backdrop. The dorm the contestants stay in in London is pretty rough too– bunkbeds and all that. In all, it’s a lot less polished and a bit harder to watch, but I still enjoyed it.

This shot was to show the hoods on the clothes. The middle model is Amy– the MUA for this shoot! No wonder I liked that BNTM show– they work like I do using whatever they can find on location!

I love this shot– just wish I had worked this angle/look more. And now that I have the use of reflectors down a little more, it would be easier to shoot too! By this point in the shoot though, we had all been working hard for two days and we were all needing to drive two-hours home so I don’t think anyone was 100-percent focused on the shoot.

more from this fashion shoot here– look under Fashion

beach

Finally– these are from a shoot way back in August that I am just now getting posted to my website.

Designs by Libby Smith of Miss Libby Ann

Ran across a couple of pics last night I had forgotten about and really love. These next two are examples:

And… here’s a shot I always forget– my set-up!

This fill/key setup leads to shots like this:

Okay, and one more shot I really liked:

Whew… that enough pics for you today? I edited down the shoot to 15 photos total… you can see ‘em on my webpage under “fashion” and it’s titled “Beach”. There’s actually a day two gallery in the works too– we shot on a fishing dock for that. Who knows when I’ll get around to finishing that one? My problem is, I like so many of the photos and narrowing them down is so tough.

And of course, my deepest gratitude goes out to Libby for designing, styling and dealing with the relatively tough nature of a location shoot. Okay, okay, Lexy, Angela, Emiko, Amy, & Terri deserve credit too! That’s right– that’s seven people involved in this shoot– thank you everyone!

more fashion photos here