Archive for the ‘Swimwear’ Categorybefore and after swimwear photoSaturday, May 18th, 2013
Wind can be your best pal on a photography assignment, or it can be a commendable foe. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do other than retouch out wild hair whipped up by the wind. Ideally, I would have turned the model to face the wind, only that was the same direction as the ocean and sunset. So ended doing a big time retouch on this one to get rid of the stray hairs.
model Vanessa with Sports + Lifestyle Unlimited
© 2013 Pete Springer
sunset swimwearWednesday, May 15th, 2013
Convinced Olivia to dip quickly into the Pacific ocean for our last few minutes of this photo session. It was cold – a challenge I often face as a swimwear photographer on the west coast – but the water gave us a great, authentic swimwear look.
The main trick with swimwear photography is to have a reason for the model to be wearing a swimsuit (ie a beach with water nearby). If your model is standing around in a bikini in a studio, it just doesn’t look right. The viewer will unconsciously wonder, “Why is she wearing a swimsuit?” There’s a reason Sports Illustrated features swimwear photos on location and not in studio. There’s something exotic and adventurous and sexy about beach photos.
Anyway, many more photos of this swimwear model to share so as usual, stay tuned!
model Olivia
what’s the best social media for photographers?Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
Ever since FB started throttling business pages in an effort to raise money (ie pay-to-promote/boost post), I’ve noticed a sharp decline in both how many people see my photos on FB and the number of likes.
For example, yesterday I posted a photo on FB. The stats are above. FB allowed a scant 123 views out of 941 people who have liked my FB photography page – or about 13-percent of my potential audience. Of that audience, there was one “like” which translates to .1-percent of my total potential audience. It’s not the quality of the photography, FB simply isn’t showing that photo in the feed. Same exact photo on instagram got 13 likes when I posted it (or 118-percent of my audience there – I’m new to instagram and only have 11 followers). The model in the photo got 58 likes on instagram when he posted it there.
So I decided to run a test to see where the most people see and like my work. It’s a little geeky in terms of numbers and percentages, but that’s the point of this test.
Now to be fair, this test was a little lopsided because FB actually let people (a whole lot of people – like ten times more than normal since FB began throttling content) see this photo! Here are the results.
On the upper left is the FB post. FB let a whopping 1038 people see this post. The model shared the photo so I tapped into a lot of her audience. Even so, with 38 likes out of 941 fans on my FB page, that’s 3.66-percent of my FB audience that liked the photo.
Same photo (upper right) on G+ got 30 plus one’s (likes) and three shares. That’s 1.65-percent of my g+ followers there who liked the photo.
Lower left is the photo on pheed. One like but with only 9 subscribers to my pheed, that’s 11-percent of my subscribers there.
Lower right is instagram. This photo received 28 likes on instagram, and with only 11 followers, that’s a whopping 254-percent of my instagram followers!
Here are the results in a little easier to understand list:
Instagram is the clear winner here in terms of audience. And again, these results are a little skewed because FB rarely lets so many people see one of my posts. Even so, instagram still was far more popular considering I’m brand new to instagram and don’t have much audience base there yet. Posting to instagram from the web takes a couple of steps, but it’s worth it if you’re looking to share your photos.
This is far from a scientific or exhaustive test. Your results may vary. I know I’ll be posting more on instagram in the future though! And yes, I know FB owns instagram so it’s probably only a matter of time before they start throttling posts there. But until that happens, it appears to be a pretty great resource for promoting photography work.
Oh, and finally, I opted to skip twitter on this test since I don’t use it much in my day-to-day posts. Maybe in the future but ever since my account there got hacked, twitter has lost some appeal to me.
© 2013 Pete Springer
portland swimwear model photographerWednesday, May 8th, 2013
Back to business – I’m loving this look right now. Thought I had sworn off ringflash but I haven’t. It’s off-camera at least. My original RF was a powerpack unit that packed a lighting bolt punch! This one is much more manageable, especially on location.
Vanessa was fabulous to work with. We had a LOT of wind and that made hair management tough plus made the notorious Oregon coast cold set in by the end. Thank you Vanessa and Sierra for sticking it out until after the sun actually set!
Location is Brookings in southern Oregon. I really want to go back to that area this summer to photograph more swimwear. It’s a beautiful spot and only 20 minutes or so from Jedediah Smith redwood state park in California which is an amazing place. Biggest, oldest trees I’ve seen and I grew up in the pacific northwest. Meaning I’ve seen a lot of big old trees but not like in northern California.
© 2013 Pete Springer
Gualala SwimwearSunday, May 5th, 2013
So there’s this small town called Gualala on the north California coast. The locals call it wah-la-la with a “w” sound.
Anyway, I was in Gualala recently and met up with a swimwear model there. Kaddy (that’s her nickname) was so fabulous! We actually worked together twice. The first night, the sunset was cold and gray. Still created some beautiful photos though – like this one before the sun went below the horizon.
Kaddy brought me a homemade tri-tip steak sandwich and a banana our second day working together. In case I hadn’t eaten lunch, which I hadn’t! I was on the road and camping so wasn’t always eating when I should. That gesture by Kaddy was so sweet and kind. People in big cities rarely do stuff like that.
Anyway, Kaddy was a blast to work with too. I love, love, love meeting locals in small towns and learning the inside story of how things work. Gualala is a pretty cool place. The beaches are to die for though there’s a lot of poison oak. I camped at the county campground and it was really nice. No joke. County campgrounds usually are a bit rough to be honest – this one is great mid-week in April. A one mile trail along the river to the beach too which is highly recommended if you visit. Gualala ain’t easy to get to though – an hour and half from Bodega Bay, couple hours off 101, etc.
© 2013 Pete Springer
Cowgirl swimwearSaturday, May 4th, 2013
Olivia had this awesome cowgirl swimsuit and she brought a hat! Yee-haw! I love when models have ideas and the ability to pull off those ideas.
This photo was created north of Bodega Bay on one of many Sonoma Coast State Beaches up there. What a gorgeous location! The irony is that the day before had been cold and foggy and windy. So bad I contacted the model and requested we move the location in-land near Santa Rosa! She was certain it would work on the coast and just like a dream, it was sunny and not windy and relatively warm (for late-April).
Olivia is a great model. This was EXACTLY the look I was hoping with her.
© 2013 Pete Springer
swimwearFriday, May 3rd, 2013
Couple more of Vanessa in a black bikini. She was awesome to work with. We’re out at Harris Beach north of Brookings here. Lot’s of cool rock formations but it got cold and windy pretty fast. Typical Oregon coast.
On a different note, I’ve quite been neglecting this blog lately. It’s not for a lack of news or new work, quite the opposite. And though I’m not a huge fan of FB, I’ll admit it’s sure a lot easier to post there than this blog. So make sure to check me out there too: Pete Springer Photography on FB
model Vanessa with Sports + Lifestyle Unlimited
California roadtrip previewWednesday, May 1st, 2013
Drove down to California this past week to photograph a wedding and stopped a few times along the way. Here’s Vanessa in Brookings. Vanessa is a stunning swimwear model with tons of potential. Just an all around natural beauty. Sports + Lifestyle is lucky to have her.
So I kept an intense schedule in California, squeezing in four swimwear photo sessions in addition to ten and half hours of wedding coverage (plus the rehearsal!). Had one more swimwear session lined up (more on that in a future post) but it fell thru. And today I made it eleven and half hours from the Bay Area to Portland in a solo drive north. Crazy ass week for sure.
You will definitely want to check back to this blog if you’re interested in more photos and stories about that California road trip.
model Vanessa with Sports + Lifestyle Unlimited
swimwear photographer oregonTuesday, March 19th, 2013
I’ve been reviewing “old” work lately as I switch out harddrives. Here are a couple photos from three and half years ago. This was my first ever session with Shelby. We met on model mayhem (I was traveling to Vegas and wanted to try some swimwear photos) and ended up doing two photo shoots on just that trip! MM success story. These photos are from the first session.
I remember that session clear as anything because I took my shoes off to wade into the “lake”. About knee deep, I stepped on broken glass! Cut the hell out of my foot. Then my white lighting blew over in the wind and took a dive in the lake. The light was fully submerged. I was horrified to be forced to shoot natural light and have no clue what I was doing (that’s changed, I LOVE natural light these days). I put on my shoes and ran to the car (quarter mile away) with my injured foot and it was a crazy hot 97F out (location was outside LV in southern Nevada). At the car, I grabbed my backup strobe (a 580 canon hotshoe flash). Everything I photographed back then was lit with a strobe. Thankfully I am done with that phase!
Dried out the light (a white lighting) that fell in the lake, though, and was able to use it a couple more times on that trip. It still works great to this day. I do like that about analog – analog can often get wet and still survive. Digital can’t. White lightings are analog. Amazing lights.
I posted that story years ago after it happened on a blog. Got a message from a reader and met him for coffee and he turned out to be an assistant that I worked with on many, many photo sessions and assignments over the years. TL, you are missed.
The model and I have done four other photo shoots since that first trip to LV too. And I even got her booked for a recent convention model gig in LV.
Anyway, haven’t shared these particular photos and I needed a post for today (my goal right now is to post every other day) so here you go! I don’t even know if anyone reads this blog. Fortunately google crawls it.
model Shelby
© 2013 Pete Springer
postcardTuesday, February 5th, 2013
I am obsessed with textures right now. Not very good with them yet but I’ll get there. Here’s my latest attempt.
model Deanna
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