Senior Portraits

A couple of weekends ago, I had the delightful opportunity to shoot some senior portraits for a young friend of mine. I have no idea why she chose me as her photographer, but I certainly tried to give her some great images for her final year of high school. She had to travel up to Portland from Florence to do the shoot, but fortunately, her step-dad was already attending a conference in the area, so her mom was able to drive her up the night before and we had almost a full day in which to shoot.

The shoot was quite enjoyable. She seems to be a natural at modeling and she obviously was having fun throughout the shoot, even though the weather was not very cooperative and she did get quite cool during certain portions of the shoots.

I was able to take her to several locations that I've used for my photography in the past; the PCC Rock Creek Campus, which has lots of interesting statues and structures that make great backdrops and props; an old railroad trestle with huge wooden beams; and Cathedral Park, underneath the St. John's Bridge. All the locations provided us with wonderful backdrops and she was able to have several outfit changes at each setting.

Here are some other images from our shoot:

This was taken under the St. John's Bridge

This was her "princess" shot for her mom.

Repairs, Models and Hot Tubs

After several months and several hundred dollars, the hot tub is now repaired, filled, and full of clean, hot water. The acrylic shell developed a small fatigue crack along the left edge of the captain's seat where the steps entered the tub. This occurred last June, and I repaired the tub myself with marine sealant as I wasn't so much worried about the cosmetics of the repair, and I figured that if it was good enough for the hull of a boat below the waterline, it would probably be fine for the static forces on a hot tub.

Unfortunately, I didn't take into account the possibility that someone might slip and fall into the captain's seat and cause a catastrophic failure of the repair. Which is exactly what happened. And since this happened in late November, I just drained the tub, covered, and let it sit through the winter rains.

With the recent good weather, though, it was time to get the tub back in service, so I got the Miracle Surface repair folks to come out and repair the acrylic surface in the tub.

They did a very nice job and managed to get the color and texture very close to the original. It's not perfect, but it's a much better match than the marine patch that I used. It also appears to be much stronger. The patch required 7-14 days of cure time, so I took that time to research how to best reinforce the patch from the underside. The surface patch made the tub water tight, but I needed to add structural strength underneath to keep the tub from cracking again.

From my research, I determined two things: 1) Hot tub shells don't normally crack to the point where they leak and 2) Most people don't want to fix them. I learned an additional bit of information as well - I had to use a fiberglass repair kit such as those used on cars and boat hulls. This meant using a resin and hardener and fiberglass matting or cloth in order to get the structural strength required. The fun part was that I would be working inside the hot tub shell and applying the patch to a horizontal overhead surface.

The interior repair actually wasn't so bad. I should have used fiberglass cloth instead of fiberglass mat, and I should have mixed my resin and hardener is smaller batches (the first large batch hardened before I could apply all of it), but all in all the repair went quickly and time will tell if the structural reinforcement will prevent a recurrence of the crack.

Once the structural repairs were complete it was a simple matter to fill the tanks, turn on the system, ensure the recirculation pump hadn't been damaged by the loss of water during the previous failure, and leak check the repairs. Once the water had been in the tub for 24 hours with no leakage, I added the chemicals and made the tub available for use.

As you can see from the photos, I like to use the tub for various photo projects. It makes a natural setting for swimsuit and figure shots, and provides privacy for the shoot. With any luck, I 'll get to use the tub for both sore muscles and photography during the rest of the spring, summer and early fall.

New Models, Projects, and Frustration

I'm a member of several photography sites and forums. I have a portfolio on One Model Place, another portfolio on Model Mayhem, a Flikr account, as well as an account on Photo.net. I'm pretty well established as a photographer on several forums and in some print media as well. So, you would think that I would have too much trouble finding new models to work with as I develop new projects. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I recently put out a casting call for a series of projects that I plan to work on over the summer months. The casting call was for ethnic models, specifically black, asian and latino models, but of the 14 response I've gotten to the casting calls, only three models have actually taken the time to meet with me. Of those, one is actually moving away from Oregon in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be unable to use her in my projects anyway. The other two are in Salem, which is much more difficult, logistically, for the shoots, but because both models have acted professionally and have significant interest in shooting with me, I'm planning to use them for the project.

What I don't understand is why some models will respond to a casting all, indicate interest, and then refuse to meet with me to discuss the projects to determine if they would be a good fit for what I have in mind. I made it very clear in the casting call that I would work within the limits the models set for the images I wanted to shoot, but it seems every time I call or write the models that indicated interest, I get no response from the majority of those who replied.

It's really a shame because I would like to find two or three models I could use on a regular basis to explore different aspects of photography (Muses so to say). Sierra is probably the closest model to that right now. At least she's dependable. I think these other two models will work out quite well too, but I really do need another model with an African background to add to my portfolio as well. So, if you're a black female model in the Portland, Oregon area and you'd like to work with me, drop me a line please. :)