From the Haugen Heart

By Autumn Hofer Presentation Director My family became part of the Haugen’s family fourteen years ago when my sister chose Haugen’s for her senior high school portraits. For the next four years, the large wall portrait was displayed prominently in our hallway, as part of our family portrait gallery. And fall of 1997 found me packing up my beloved cat, Mattee, along with my entire wardrobe, for my Haugen’s experience. Soon after, my wall portrait joined my sister’s on the wall of honor, where both have graced my family home ever since. Who could have guessed that the summer of 2007, some ten years later, I would join the Haugen’s family as an employee? And, in addition to my enjoyable work, I have continued the portrait tradition as well… my husband Tim, son Dylan (age 2 ½) and I just sat for our first Haugen’s family portrait. I have a feeling that portrait will soon join those of my sister and me on my mother’s wall, expanding the memories of family love that these special portraits c...

By Eleanor Wershow, Director of Operations When I was seventeen and a senior in high school, I knew exactly which studio was going to do my senior portraits. It was the same studio who did my siblings’ senior portraits and my uncle’s wedding. Oh! And my siblings in 1979, me and my siblings in 1980, me in 1982, and the list goes on and on and on. The photographers who took all these photos? Why, Haugen’s of course! I was lucky enough to grow up with an aunt and uncle who are amazing photographers. When my sister got married, and then my brother, there were no questions about who was going to do their wedding photography, even though my sister was married at the Grand Canyon and my brother in St. Paul, MN. My mom retained Neil and Miriam for both weddings. This included travel & lodging, of course, as it does for all destination wedding photographers. This seemed completely normal to me, to commission the best photographers to commemorate the most important events in our lives. Then...

By Eleanor Wershow, Director of Operations Here’s a question for all you trivia lovers out there: How many times have the two Haugen photographers won Best Portrait of a Teenage Boy? I grew up with Haugen’s (see the article “Growing Up Haugen’s”) but until last week I didn’t have a clue how many awards Neil & Miriam had won. Then I found a box of trophies gathering dust in a corner. A big box. With LOTS of awards. So many, in fact, that we now have a whole display case filled with trophies and a wall covered in plaques. All of these awards are from the Professional Photographers of Oregon and Profession Photographers of America yearly print competitions. Every winter Miriam and Neil review the images they’ve taken in the previous year and choose eight (four per photographer) to send to competition. In 2007 alone, Neil took home the trophy for Best Social Candid Wedding Division while Miriam won Best Teenage Boy and the Fuji Masterpiece Award. Since one of them seems to win at leas...

I (this is Neil talking) get asked every once in a while what is it that I do here at the studio, besides use a camera. Like many other things, my duties changed quite a bit with the switch to digital. I’ve always been the new information grunt of the studio , meaning that I am the unfortunate soul who is assigned to read about new or changed or re-discovered ideas or equipment that may be of use here in the studio. In another essay, I noted that we used the same cameras for twenty-plus years. The biggest “workflow” change in one long period of years came when we switched film speed, or sensitivity to light, of our basic film. We had to re-test to establish the best quality exposure at what “speed” or ISO rating, and then adjust our hand-held light meters to that setting. It took about five days, mostly waiting for the film to be developed a couple times as we tested and re-tested. Ah, the good old days. Now, our “film” (i.e., camera) needs changing every couple of years or sooner, as ...

It is just weird these days ... for the first 25 years we had the studio, a camera was a camera was a camera. And now, it isn't ... at least, it's not the same. The main "tool" we thought we worked with for all those years was the camera. By my third year, I'd settled on the Mamiya RB67, and we also purchased one for Miriam when she joined the business. We then used our RB's for the next 22 years . (That's the old RB in the image with me. Lotta metal, huh?) Now we change every cameras every couple years. Why? Well, it has to do with WHAT has changed with the digital revolution, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. Film cameras are either small format, medium format, or large format. Our old RB’s were medium-format cameras, as they used 120/220 sized roll film. The negatives it produced were 6x7cm, or roughly two and a quarter inch by two and three-quarter inches, with ten on a 120 roll of film, and 20 on a 220 roll of film. "Small" format came...

I (Miriam) just got a nice email from a mom that made me feel like it is all worthwhile. “Thanks again for the wonderful session. You were so thoughtful to take time to get to know Eric, and thus captured the essence of who he is. I have been telling everyone about you, and look forward to doing business with you in the future! Fondly, Annie Nelson” Here is one of Eric’s portraits - and it was a pleasure to get to know Eric and his mom!

I had so much fun photographing last week. I thought I would just share a few highlights. Casey Higgins is a senior at CV. We met his mom, Helen through our work with the Boys and Girls Club of Corvallis, a charity we support (she is the director). Like a lot of 17-year-old guys, there were other things he probably would have rather have been doing than portraits. But he was a good sport and great to have in front of the camera. John Carpenter is pastor at the Oakville Presbyterian Church. Miriam grew up as an active member of this historic country church so finding that some of their parishioners had purchased a gift certificate for his family was very exciting! John, Mary, Hannah and Heidi were all involved in the home consultation. We decided that this portrait needed to say ”Oregon” to everyone viewing it. We chose the Falls City falls for the trees and water. Megan Miller is a High school senior from Lebanon. She saw our display at the Northwest Horse Expo. No horses in this sessi...

From Miriam: We just got back from Sunriver where we always spend Labor Day weekend with my family. We like to go to Central Oregon because there are so many great places to hike. Here we are at the top of Mt. Tumalo with the Three Sisters and Broken top in the background. L to R: Miriam’s dad, Huck (89 years old!); brother Bruce’s family: Linda with little Nora Jane and Willamina due to make an appearance at New Years, Bruce, Gavin and Claudia; brother Greg; sister Janet, family: husband Stewart, Eleanor, Aaron, Brett (Kate’s husband), Kate, Tonya (Aaron’s husband), and Janet; Neil is standing on the far right and Miriam, Lars and Anna are crouching in front. (Nels spent the weekend in Seattle with fiance, Danielle.)

Just came back from a wonderful wedding at BeckenRidge Vineyard . Mikki Pomerenke and Brian Trowbridge got married on the hillside overlooking the vineyard and our beautiful Willamette Valley. The weather was perfect, the couple was beautiful, the food was great (thanks to Occasions Catering ) and the party was fun. What more could you ask for? We are always looking for the things that make the day go especially smoothly. Penny Parrot from Forever Yours Florals was actually there to pin the boutonnieres on the men. That was the first time I had ever seen a florist stay to do that! Neil and I so often end up with that chore because the florist dropped off a box of flowers but no one has a clue how to pin them on. It was delightful to get to meet Becky and Ken, the owners of BeckenRidge . They are taking a very “hands on” approach and were very helpful. Neil first met Mikki as a young teen when they were both in HMS Pinafore at the Salem library. We did her senior portraits a couple of ...

Way to go Jed! It is really fun to see when one of our clients does great things. Jed Lowrie (North Salem class of 2001) got drafted by the Boston Red Sox just three years ago. He has been playing single A and double A ball for their organization and we just got word that he has been moved to their AAA Pawtucket team! If you have seen as many great baseball movies as we have, you know he is just one small step from “The Show” (major league). You can find out more about Jed in the sports section of July 29 Statesman Journal newspaper. We are praying for you, Jed. Hope you stay “injury free”. It is clear you have the talent! . . (Jed Lowrie, age 10!)

And the winner is . . . . The results are in for the children’s contest! The People’s Choice award goes to Lindzee Schaeffer of West Salem. Her mom, Kristina, chose the theme “Rain, rain, go away” and put her in a rain slicker, boots, and umbrella. The forecast that day was for rain but we got sunshine! Some people have the idea that all the wonderful images we display are of children who are very cooperative and will always do exactly as we say and will sit still for long periods of time. Hah! . Lindzee, shown here, had a mind of her own and was running all over the place. What she wanted to do and what we had in mind were usually two different things. We discovered that she loved our dog, Katie, so we had Katie running around and found we could get good expressions just by asking, “Where’s Katie?” By getting into the flow of what she wanted to do, I feel we really captured her spirit. Madison Applebee of Salem was the winner of the Artistic Merit award. When her mom, Nikkie, came in...

Having owned our own business for 30 years (can you believe it?), Neil and I have gained lots of experience in interviewing people for jobs. We have also done practice interviews for friends and helped them to get job offers. Today, I did a practice interview with a friend that is applying for a teaching position. Laura is a single mom and really needs a stable income to support herself and her three boys. She has been looking for over a year, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Here are the tips that I wrote for her. These should be applicable to any situation. Successful Interviewing 101 Prepare ahead of time · Do research about the business you will be interviewing with. Do you know anyone who works there that can give you insider information? Do they have a mission statement? What are their areas of strength? How can you help them build on their strengths? · It is also helpful to know something about the personality of the person who will interview you. The only way yo...