don’t be stupid

Regular readers of this blog will recall a recent request I had from Portland Monthly magazine for a photo from a fashion show. When they told me they didn’t have a budget to pay ANYTHING for the use of the photo, I turned them down.

Of course they found someone willing to give them a photo for free. So they’re running it as a 1/6 photo in the print edition. According to Portland Monthy’s advertising rates, they charge $1772 for a 1/6 page advertisement. Oh wait– it gets better. The photo is also being used on their website for every single date (five or six dates) of the fashion show they’re promoting.

In other words, the photog who gave PM their photo to use not only lost out on print usage fees, they also lost out on web usage fees. Now that’s some brilliant marketing, eh? Sounds to me that what the photographer is saying is, “My work is worthless so I won’t charge you for it and you can use it both in your print and web editions and I still won’t charge you for it because my work is worthless.”

Now that’s just plain sad. I’ve preached this over and over but just in case you’re not getting the point, don’t ever give your work away! Ever. You’ll just get taken advantage of and honestly, the photo credit won’t pay your bills. And… the only work it’s going to get you is people looking for a photographer who will shoot for free.

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

fashion photography portland oregon

Pete Springer Photography Portland OR

desert photography

Pete Springer Photography

stylish portraits portland oregon

Model Victoria, mua Ashlee Murr, hair Nicole Brockway, styling Sarah Van Raden.

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

Willamette Week photo

Ran across this photo I shot in Willamette Week newspaper today. It’s running as a quarter page shot!

The irony is that the current issue is WW’s fashion issue. Just my two-cents, but the art & editorial direction was lacking just a bit in terms of their shoot. They actually did an extraction of two models shot on Cape Horn– one of the most scenic spots in the Columbia River Gorge! What’s the point of shooting there if you’re gonna do an extraction?

Even worse, you can clearly see the photoshop used on the cover (note the white haze on the male models right side– both his face and his jacket sleeve. My guess is they used a curves adjustment in post and didn’t quite get it right).

Anyway, of course I’m jealous and wish I had shot the images. But I can’t be too bitter– I did get to shoot up at Cape Horn for my day job earlier this year and, even better, had access to areas that were definitely off-limits to the WW photog (a trophy house being demolished).

Okay, okay, so why all this critical analysis of WW this week? I’m sure it has nothing to do with the $50 they still owe me for a photo of mine they ran over a year ago. Or the time they ran one of my photos and spelled my name wrong in the credit…

The point is that sometimes local publications forget about how important photographers are to them, but us photographers don’t ever forget!

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

portrait beauty shot

Styling Sarah Van Raden, MUA Ashlee Murr, hair Nicole Brockway, model Kyleen.

Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

beauty shot

MUA & hair Terri Lodge, model Alexandra w/ Q6, photo Pete Springer

* as of 10:35 p.m., good ol’ Pbase (the host for the pics) is down (again). But it really is a cool pic– you’ll just have to imagine it until pbase doesn’t suck so much!

as if there isn’t enough on the web about this already…

Okay, so the web is saturated with the much anticipated news of Canon’s new 5D — the 5D MK II. And I’m tossing in my two-cents too.

Why? This camera is nothing short of phenomenal. I still LOVE my original 5D but the replacement raises the bar tremendously. Still FF, 21 MP (!), incredible ISO speeds, and it shoots HD video.

Talk about a home run for Canon. This baby is going to be one hot camera that I bet will be just about impossible to find until about next year at this time. I know I want one!

Pete Springer Photography

backstage photos – sofada fashion show

Did some shooting behind the scenes Friday night at the Sofada fashion show.

It’s trickier than it looks because the space is so small and crowded and existing light is really the way to go since you have to be a bit subtle. Thankfully the 5D easily cranks to ISO 1600 (yeah, yeah, you D3 users can laugh all you want… there’s a new 5D on the way that hopefully will match the ISO performance of the new Nikons).

Anyway, check out more backstage pics here. Make sure to try the new “slideshow” button on the upper right– it’s a little slow but it’s flash based and very cool after it fully loads!

Pete Springer Photography

sofada fashion show photos portland

Fresh off the runway– photos from the Sofada by Alice Dobson fashion show last night. A comment points out that this first photo is from the debut of Varnish clothing by Kelcey Blanton. She’s been working for Sofada and now has her own line out. Congrats Kelcey!

I’ve long admired designer Alice Dobson so it was cool to finally get a chance to meet her last night.

I did make one error– should have changed the batteries in my 580 during the intermission! It worked great the first half of the show, but then started taking four or five seconds to recycle and I was stuck using the event lighting for a number of photos.

I did shoot with two camera bodies, but found the 1d mkII to be the best for this and pretty much gave up on the wide angle shots. The show was on a rooftop but started too late for the skies and surrounding buildings to be visible in the ambient light. Fun show though! Thanks Alice for all your access! I’ll try to get some backstage shots posted this week too.

Pete Springer Photography