Vote for Fritz Photography on Oregon Bride!

Oregon Bride Magazine is currently accepting votes for the Best Portland Wedding Photography Vendors 2009. Anyone can vote! I'd be honored if you'd take a moment to vote for Fritz Photography. The winners will be featured in their next issue, and I'd love to be one of them.

You can go here to vote!

Environmental Portraits Class at PNCA

Travel Writer Rolf Potts

This February and March, I'll be teaching my popular course The Environmental Portrait at Pacific NW College of Art. I love shooting Portland location portraits, and enjoy teaching others how to do it well. Here's the class description:

The Environmental Portrait places a person in the context of their natural surroundings, and communicates more about them than is possible in a studio or simple headshot. Photographers use environmental portraiture to document figures in popular culture (Annie Liebowitz), make social commentary and documentary (Dorothea Lange), and more. In this class we will look at master location portrait photographers; review and critique each others work; and discuss how location portraits say much about the subject, as well as their social and political context in which they live. We will be working with models, available and artificial lighting, composition, camera and media choices, output and presentation. Both film and digital are welcome. The class will culminate with a portrait series as a final project.

You can read more, and sign up, at the Continuing Education portion of the PNCA website.

Learn to Design Your Own Photography Books

This term at Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, I'll be teaching a 5-week workshop on book design and self-publishing.

In this class, you'll have the chance to make your very own photography book - from start to finish! Personal photography books make magnificent gifts, are great complements to portfolio presentations, and can tremendously aid in marketing your work.
Through a hands-on process of editing and sequencing your work, sizing your images for printing, and experimenting with basic design, layout, and digital printing options, you'll learn how to create a beautiful presentation piece that expresses your artistic vision. The best part? At the end of class, you'll have a finished book, fresh from the print shop!
I'll be helping fashion a concept for your finished book, prepare your images, and produce a volume that truly represents your artistic vision.

Read more, and sign up, at Newspace.

Amanda and John taken to The Cleaners

We had so much fun with our wedding photography at Portland's new Ace Hotel in downtown Portland this past weekend. John and Amanda were married in their event space called The Cleaners (yes, a converted dry cleaners, complete with the faded Peacock Clenaers sign still hanging outside). The wedding was cozy and intimate, and the Ace staff were super friendly.

We also had fun at their wedding photographing people in our Portland PhotoBooth. We set up a simple studio in the corner, and people come and goof around in front of the camera all they want. It's a lot of fun. People love it!

New Model Portfolio Images: How Old Are These Kids?

You'd probably never guess this lovely young lady is only 12. It still amazes me how mature an older child can appear when photographed right.

In the past couple weeks I've had several new model portfolio photography sessions in Portland, both on location in NE Portland, and in the studio in the Pearl District. I love working with young people; it's refreshing (if a bit chaotic at times) and the resulting photographs are always fun to review.

If you haven't had opportunity, visit and browse the updated modeling portfolio photography section of my new website. It's perty!

John Weinland at Transitions' Awareness Event

Last night I photographed an awareness event put on by Transitions Global, regarding their work here in Portland to help girls trapped in sex slavery and prostitution. We were privileged to have Weinland playing music for the event. Beautiful music; check it out on their MySpace page. They're likened to Neil Young (in a good way), and I hear a little of Iron and Wine in there as well. Good stuff.




To see more of our Portland editorial photography, visit us at Fritz Photography.

Shooting Meredith in the Snow

With the record levels of snow we've been getting around here lately, I've been wanting to get out and photograph a Portland model in it. I was blessed to have a young lady I've photographed with in the past volunteer to work with me again this past weekend. So we went to the highest point in Portland--Council Crest--where it was still 32 degrees and very covered in snow. Meredith was a real trooper, wearing a party dress in this kind of weather for quite a while. And it paid off. We photographed some great, quirky images for her fashion photography portfolio, and were treated to a beautiful sunset at the very end.

2008 Cosmic Paper Redux

When I was in high school, my English teacher, Mr. Demkowicz, had us write Cosmic Papers a couple times a year. A Cosmic Paper was something of a personal review of one’s life, a way of taking stock of what we’d learned so far in his class, how we might have grown and changed, and how it related to everything and anything. Thus the “Cosmic” portion of the title.

For a number of years after high school, I would sit down at the end of the year and write my own cosmic paper. It was a good, reflective discipline.

I don’t intend to write a complete Cosmic Paper here, but I have been thinking about the year past, and want to take a few minutes to reflect on it.

Ten years ago, it was hard to imagine a year like 2008.

In 1998, I was still struggling with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and was living in subsidized housing. But things were looking up; I’d just traveled to Taiwan to photograph a wedding, was looking into finishing a BFA in Art, was best friends with a wonderful girl, and was planning our wedding.

Fast forward 10 years:

I’m now preparing for my 10 year wedding anniversary, which is hard to believe. Shannon and I are better friends than ever, and we’ve racked up some precious memories in a short stint of time.

In the past year, I’ve photographed in 10 countries outside of the USA. (Mexico, England, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Morocco, Cambodia, and Thailand.) That’s an incredible dream come true. I’ve photographed for magazines and stock, weddings and models, street shooting, documentaries, and portraits. I’ve met many wonderful people and been able to tell some interesting and meaningful stories. I wrote my first travel magazine article on Bicycling in Budapest. I’ve been vomited on in airplanes, hiked the Yorkshire Dales, explored the Bories of southern France, worked with women struggling with eating disorders and the aftershocks of sex slavery, and come to enjoy chocolate.

Back at home in the past year, I’ve photographed some beautiful weddings and portraits, created some new websites, moved on from a leadership position at church, sent my wife to nursing school, and submitted my Skeleton in the Closet series to book publishers. It’s been a year of ups and downs in both photography and real estate investing, but overall a year of rest, growth, and discovery.

That’s a long ways from subsidized housing and CFS.

I say none of this to gloat. I'm sure plenty of people are jealous of what I've been able to do this past year, just as I remain jealous of what others are able to do that I'm not. So counting one's blessings, and expressing gratitude, are good practices. I have a lot to be grateful for, and I am blessed. (Although it’s also true that I had a lot to be grateful for and was just as blessed 10 years ago.) God is good.