pics from the weekend

Well, now the photo hosting seems to be working. Pbase still sucks though!

Anyway, here are some images from a shoot Saturday– the designers (Mabel & Audrey) create clothes from size 4 – 16. We were rained out, so started out in an apartment basement.

There were some cool electrical meters and boxes but some crazy lady kept wandering through telling us she was being evicted and wondering how long we would be in the basement and if we had permission from the landlord. I didn’t really mind, but the designer/tenant– who has more at stake with the landlord than me– was getting a little nervous so we wrapped up faster than I would have liked and moved to an outdoor location under a bridge.

This next shot is one of my favs from the shoot– and what’s funny is I totally overlooked it until the designers requested it. Alicia, you have the whitest white skin and it’s simply beautiful! Someday I may be bugging you for some stylish beauty type shots that really play off your snow white skin.

Pete Springer Portland Oregon Fashion Photography

pbase sucks

Yup, an entire post dedicated to how much pbase sucks. Pbase is where I host the photos for this blog. And now I can’t access my paid account (AGAIN!) and not a single photo is showing up here as of this morning. Way to go pbase! Your service reminds me of a Soviet Union supermarket– you keep telling everyone how everything is fine, but we all know it sucks.

photos that you CAN see

batch resizing and aspect ratios

Did a catalog style shoot Sunday and the client wanted five different sizes of images. No prob– only the aspect ratio was different than the aspect ratio of the capture. In other words, a simple batch resizing doesn’t work.

With some tremenous help from an anonymous person on dpreview, I created actions that use image size with no resampling to create a known height. Then the rectangle marquee to crop to the proper aspect ratio, plus positioning, then cropping, then using image size again with resample checked to create the proper size. Add in the sharpening, mode, etc and the action is about ten steps! So I had to create an action for each different size, and since I don’t know another way (though there is one), two actions for each size based on portrait or landscape format. Whew! Used bridge to crank through these once the actions were created. I sure hope this boutique doesn’t change sizes for the next shoot!

No steamer on site– so this shirt looks like one in my closet!

Pete Springer catalog photography portland oregon

couple moody pics

Did a shoot Saturday for some local designers. It was raining so we started in the basement of an apartment building, then moved to a covered outdoor location. The original idea was for spring photos– but it’s pretty hard to be springlike in a basement!

Not sure that I lit this the best way (the shadows need some fill behind her) but I love the look and mood. Seems to really capture February in Portland!

Alright, one of the outdoor shots. Story of my life… one model was FREEZING and very, very uncomfortable so we worked very fast. I do wish I had turned them both at a slight angle though.

Pete Springer Portland Oregon Fashion Photographer

a culture changed forever

This is the Columbia River at a spot that fifty years ago was a massive series of cascades and falls known as Celilo Falls. Indians from all over the region fished for salmon here. Then– fifty years ago next month, a big ol’ dam filled up the falls with this reservoir. The Corps also blew up a couple of rock formations for navigation for barges– so even if the pool was drained to expose the falls, they would be different.

There are still some Indians who live in a little village near the former salmon bonanza site– it’s a place called Celilo Village. It’s one of the poorest places I’ve seen in Oregon.

Many residents live in trailers and everyone has a couple of dogs or more. This bitch had a litter of puppies running around.

There aren’t many people who live in the village, and a “longhouse” was constructed there for ceremonies– but not everyone is happy with it. Talked to a couple of people who basically think the new longhouse is a prop and not like the longhouses they remember as kids.

The village is now seperated from the river by an interstate freeway and freight train tracks. Instead of the roar of the falls, they hear the roar of trains and the freeway.

Living conditions are bleak– broken windows, trash, pot-hole filled dirt roads, dogs on chains outside trailers– that kind of thing.

This man is now an Indian chief– but he lives across the river from the village and says that’s where the traditional longhouse and village used to be– until the railroad on that side of the river made them move. The chief remembers the falls and was 26 when it was flooded– he told us about how he had to leave and go drive to the coast when it happened because he couldn’t bare to see his beloved falls get filled in with water.

Here’s the culprit– The Dalles dam. Happy 50th anniversary, dam. Needless to say, you’re still a VERY bitter pill for many, many, many people to swallow. You’d think this kind of situation was limited to the past, but you need only to look to China and the present day work to dam the Yangtze River to realize how little has changed in the world. Progress marches on and native cultures, salmon, fish, scenery, etc are removed if they stand in the way.

Pete Springer Photography, Portland OR

can’t get snow off the brain

Actually, I finally wrapped up part I of this particular shoot and scheduled part II. Crossing my fingers it doesn’t rain and I’ll definitely haul in backup lighting equipment! I’m hoping to get three more looks to finish up this “story” and let me tell you– this whole story has not been very easy to tell! We need an RV for prepping… but all we have is a dark SUV. Did Steven Meisel start out this way?

Also, I’m still working on the 40’s stuff, believe it or not. Could I be more behind on my post production work? I’m learning lots of new tricks along the way– just last night learned how to deal with fly away hairs in PS. Now that I’m trying to use hair lights, that is much more of an issue.

Alright– that’s it for today. Hopefully soon I’ll have a whole damn snow story to post!

Portland Oregon Fashion Photography, Pete Springer

anatomy of a snowshoe trip

Spent another weekend getting snow photos– this time in central Oregon. Here’s the start of a snowshoe trip, everyone is happy.

Still happy– the trusted leader is still on track, we know where we are.

Okay, some doubt is starting to creep in– are we going in circles?

Damn, those ponderosas sure get big. But where are we? We are travelling in circles, aren’t we?

Alright, it’s been over an hour, you still have that damn camera out, and we’re still a mile from the car? WTF?

Photos of faces no longer allowed– it’s been an hour and half, we’re still sloggin’ through the woods, and the car ain’t any closer. What happened to the fun part of the trip?

Aaahh, here we go. The rental cabin. Finally the damn snowshoe trip is over! And yes, I’m fully aware any architectural shooter would flip over this sloppy shot– it’s all natural light and I cleaned up no clutter before shooting. Just wanted to show the cool open ceiling design of the rental cabin. Cool place– indoors anyway. Outdoors, the neighbor let his dogs run loose– they get into garbage cans and chase cars and pee on parked cars. Guess that’s country livin’ for you. Not quite the solitude promised by the rental agency…

Pete Springer Photography

photoshop vs reality

Here’s a very cool PSCS trick I just learned– making models taller and thinner. Now what’s ironic is this model is already a size 0-2, so she’s about as skinny as you can get. In real life anyway.

But good ol’ PSCS can make her unhealthy thin. I know this is totally twisted but it’s still pretty cool. Just goes to show you should never believe what you see in the magazines.

Here’s the regular/before shot:

Here’s with the PSCS tweak– taller and thinner:

Alright, alright– all apologies to Kira. Again, she’s the last person in the world who needs thinning down– I’m just messing around here to see how this technique works. Seems like it has great potential to create low self-esteem in all those people who aren’t walking around photoshopped super thin. As if the fashion industry needed any more ammo to create low self-esteem…

Also, thanks to PSCS guru Kevin Ames for this trick.

Portland Oregon fashion photography

be prepared

Here’s another from this past weekend that I really liked. Found some cool poses in mags last night that I’d like to try for part two of this shoot too. The weather lately though– yuck. It’s raining and in the 50’s in town, which means it’s raining and in the 40’s in the mountains. Good ol’ global warming. The big problem with the rain in the mountains is not just the obvious (messin’ up hair dos, makeup, lighting etc) but the snow is all slushy too and you sink in and the model gets cold wet feet in about ten seconds so you really have to work fast.

Okay, not exactly the most insightful post today… just something to make sure I get my web link up ’cause that’s really the whole point of this damn blog in the first place!

Pete Springer Photographer Portland, Oregon

no cute girls today…

Nope, just finishing up the Nader photos for my daytime employer. This was the first shot I took and it’s probably my fav of the seven shots I snapped. I tweaked it on a PC, then got it on a mac and it looked a bit dark, so I boosted the mid-tones… hopefully I didn’t over do it.

Here’s one of my ’safety’ shots– it looks a bit overexposed here– but looked fine when I tweaked it earlier on the mac. Should’ve trusted the ol’ PC…

One more– the web folks always want landscape format shots– kind of tough on a studio portrait, but this is what I came up with.

** grrrr– pbase (where these images are hosted) is so frustrating at times! My hotlinks are NOT working as I write this and of course they won’t load up on the pbase site. All I can say is– WTF pbase? Oh, and now they’re showing up… it’s totally random. So just be patient if they don’t show– it’s a pbase issue, not the blog.

fashion & portrait photography, portland oregon, pete springer