We loved exploring a local university for Austin’s senior portrait and getting a view of Portland’s older neighborhoods and an elevated view of the city during Maddie’s portrait session, but when Kelsey told us that she had decided to have her portraits taken in downtown Portland, Amy and I were a little giddy. We love shooting portraits in urban settings, and downtown Portland was so rife with cool textures and colors that we had a hard time choosing where to take photographs. As the four of us walked along (Kelsey’s mom was kind enough to come as a wardrobe consultant/carrier of the bags), Amy and I kept remarking to each other “What a cool wall” or “Wow! Look at those bricks” or “Can you lay down on the sidewalk over there?” I’m sure that Kelsey and her mom thought we were crazy. But Kelsey kept laying on sidewalks, posing in front of cool walls, and climbing into the windows of abandoned buildings for us. And we kept on taking pictures.
Kelsey was a fantastic photo subject. Not only is she naturally beautiful, but she did a great job of avoiding the “bride face” frozen smile that can afflict a subject during an hour long photo shoot. We’re so glad that she decided to get up early in the morning and wander the streets of Portland with us.
Several people have asked about the locale for the preview of Kelsey’s senior portrait session and for insight about the texture that was applied to the pictures like the ones below. In downtown Portland, near the location of the famous Saturday Markets, there’s a church with a rather odd water fixture outside of it. It’s shaped like a long thin guitar and, as evidenced in the photos below, it’s surrounded by bamboo shoots that make a great foreground to shoot photographs through. The last photograph is nearly straight out of the camera-all I did was bump the color and the contrast a tad, but I love the texture that using the bamboo as a foreground creates.
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