I’ve been following this case since last June when Michael Fox was first arrested. At the time, the guy already had a reputation as a douche bag who used his agency as a dating service. Well it’s not exactly a date when the girl is only 16 and you sexually abuse her, is it? Fortunately the courts agreed.

Portland modeling agency owner sentenced to a year in prison

The amazing part is that Fox was re-arrested for violating the terms of his release agreement just last month (wild guess – no contact with minors?) This is clearly the kind of guy you want to avoid, much less have him represent you as a model.

I’ve had a number of Vault “models” contact me in the past year and I refuse to work with them. I explain to them that I work very hard to maintain a positive reputation and associating with an agency who’s owner was arrested for sexually abusing a minor is not the reputation I want.

Anyway, there is a legitimate modeling industry in Portland and there are legitimate agencies. Take a look at this post I did back in June when Fox was initially arrested. Only thing I’d change about this post is that I’ve since worked a bunch with Sports and Lifestyle Unlimited and they’re absolutely fabulous. They’re generally the first agency I recommend to models now. Q6 and Option also remain stellar.

portland photographer pete springer

“Does your website have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.”

Trouble finding my contact page?!? Did you look at the title bar?!? It’s that link that says, “contact”!

It’s funny because I’m on twitter, FB (two accounts – business and personal), g+, linkedin, and I have my email and phone number listed online for anyone who is looking. I hand out business cards all the time, send promotional emails, and print postcards too. Not exactly hiding here, brilliant commenter! So it always cracks me up when people say something like, “I couldn’t find out how to contact you.” Really?

portland photographer pete springer

“My name is Pete, and I’m an SEO-aholic.”

“Hi, Pete!”

Seriously, for a while I’ve been obsessed with SEO. Always sneaking keywords into everything I can – image alt tags, link descriptions, posting on social media at times most likely to get noticed, reviewing my google analytics with a fine-tooth comb, etc, etc.

And you know what? I’m not so convinced anymore that SEO matters as much as I thought. What changed?

Well I get at least one phone call a week from someone trying to sell me SEO services. They almost always start with something like, “You’re on page 2 of a google search for ‘portland photographers’”. And for a fee, the caller will get me on page one. The irony is that depending on your monitor size, I’m sometimes listed on page one (see image above) for “portland photographer”. Size does matter when it comes to SEO.

But you know what? I’m slowly coming around to the realization that SEO doesn’t really matter for commercial photographers. Clients rarely find a commercial photographer based on google results. Instead, they usually ask for recommendations from co-workers or work with someone they’ve already worked with.

We’ve all heard this a million times, but relationships are much more important than anything else. More important than where you rank on google, more important than having insane photography skills, more important than having shitloads of friends on FB. People usually hire people they know or people recommended by people they know.

Leslie Burns (a commercial photography consultant and attorney) has long recommended you spend your efforts on direct marketing and creating relationships rather than SEO. In fact, she goes so far as to say “Fuck SEO” in her December 29th blog post (#4 on the list). I have to say, after a lot of reflection, I think she has a valid point.

So if you’re obsessed with SEO, I’d suggest you re-think it. Your best clients aren’t going to come from google searches (some clients will, but generally, the best – ie ones hiring you for shoots you really want to do – probably aren’t using google to find you).

And finally, Michael Katz points out in his awesome business blog and webinars, that it’s a lot easier to get re-hired by existing clients than to try to find new clients. The key here is to take a genuine interest in your clients.

Think about it. You’re at the grocery store and the clerk asks, “How ya’ doing?” You might give them a single word answer and forget all about it. But what if they ask, “You going anywhere for the holidays?”

That happened to me last month and I had a conversation with the grocery store clerk (he was going to Texas, I was going to California) and every time since, when I go to that store, I now say “hi” to the clerk. Even when he’s not helping me. That’s something no amount of SEO can create.

portland photographer pete springer

Check this out. Same exact photo posted on FB by me and the model. She has 684 friends, I have 568 fans. So she has 17-percent more audience than me. Yet check the likes. I received 9, she received 40. That’s 78-percent more likes for her post of the exact same photo!

I am convinced a girl posting the exact same content on FB will always receive more likes than a guy. Would make for an interesting study anyway.

Incidentally, this is by far my most popular photo on facebook and I didn’t even post it. Eighty-five likes! 85!

portland photographer pete springer

Took a couple of days over the Christmas holiday to drive to California to visit relatives. On the way home, drove up through the redwoods on Hwy 101 in northern California. Will post more on that trip soon — just got back last night! In the meantime, here’s a preview.

portland photographer pete springer

Listening to “Here and Now” on the radio today and there was an interview with actor George Takei. Takei is an American citizen who was detained by the U.S. Government during WWII because he’s of Japanese descent. Over 100,000 American citizens were sent to prison camps and held without charges until the war was over.

Several years ago, I visited Manzanar, one of these prison camps in the eastern Sierra of California. It’s a very, very sobering place. One guard tower has been reconstructed, but imagine several more towers and a barbed wire fence surrounding the camp. Now imagine you’re an American citizen being held there without charges for an indefinite period of time.

Oh that was the 1940’s, it can’t happen again, right? I wish that was the case. The National Defense Authorization Act once again allows for the indefinite detention of Americans without charging them.

While I don’t often get political on this blog (though I’m a very political person in my private life), this is an issue that I think is important enough to post about. I don’t want to be forced to live in some cold, windy, barren plain in the eastern Sierra or anywhere else and I suspect no other American does either.

Also, I think sometimes seeing photos of these camps helps people realize they are real places that were inhabited by real people in the not so distant past.

portland photographer pete springer

So here’s a great example of why I like g+ more than FB. It’s from my feed today. Girl in lingerie, French snowman, girl with gun. That’s the kind of simplicity I can deal with.

That and I have 1600+ international followers on g+ compared to a third of that on FB.

portland photographer pete springer

So new timeline finally rolling out on FB. I’ve already deleted a bunch of my posts. They were funnier as individual posts and besides, who really needs to be reminded of the stupid stuff they were doing several years ago?!? Luckily it’s just on personal profiles though I’d actually rather see it on my business profile to review my progress over the years.

Speaking of my business FB profile, this is my favorite photo banner bar generated so far! I’m elbow deep into editing this shoot and it’s nice to see a random sequence that captures some of what I was aiming for.

portland shoe photographer pete springer

Group shot of belly dancers from tonight.

Fun shoot — I tried to use a mirror to help position them in place. That’s tough with a group if you have a upright vertical mirror too big to hold horizonally.

Shameless plug but click Soul Fire Belly Dance for more of my photos of this troupe. Ironically enough, I’ve never photographed them at a performance.

And finally, a little inside baseball. Lighting here is five lights, believe it or not. One key and four on the background. F/20 on the background and f/20 as key I believe. Probably need a bigger space to really pull off this look (platform and plexi and big wide ass background with lights flagged for flare) but I’m happy with the look here.

portland photographer pete springer

So I took my five-month old black lab puppy (aahhh, isn’t he cute? yeah, just wait) to the Occupy Portland event yesterday. Wanted to take him downtown and get him used to being in crowds and all that.

The highlight for him? Goose poop in Waterfront Park. Yuck, right?

As we were walking along the park in the midst of the protest march, he was taking sneaky macks on goose poop if I eased the leash just a bit. I mumbled something about how I wished my dog would stop eating goose poop. The person next to me came up with a clever protest slogan, “Who’s poop? Goose poop!”

In case you’re not versed in street protest slogans, that’s a play on “Who’s streets? Our streets! Whose parks? Our parks!” etc.

portland photographer pete springer