Winston- A Staffordshire Bull Terrier

As some of you already know, last fall we had quite a different family project from the beer that recently stopped bubbling under the kitchen table–our 2009 project was a photo shoot for Pinups for Pitbulls.  While a combination of contractual obligations prior to the calendar’s release and pure laziness ever since has allowed us to put off publishing the pictures until now, my goal this evening is to correct this discrepancy!

It all started a year or two ago, when we were first taking flak for Winston being an adorable Staffordshire bull terrier and my mom found an article about a pitbull-themed calendar in the Fargo Forum.  The calendar was called Pinups for Pitbulls, and it was produced by an organization of the same name, dedicated to rehabilitation of the pitbull image and the protection of abandoned pitbulls.

Soon, I had the calendar on my wall and was a regular visitor to the website, www.pinupsforpitbulls.com.  Being incredibly vain, and thinking modeling couldn’t possibly be hard (even after several cycles of America’s Next Top Model), I watched carefully to find out how I could get involved…

…and soon had an answer.  As luck would have it, last year was the first year that Pinups for Pitbulls went nationwide, accepting photo submissions for the 2010 calendar from women and dogs everywhere.  I excitedly ran into the next room and quickly talked Ben into busting out his fancy camera and photography skills.

Within a week, we were putting together a portfolio of photos.

And selecting a Gil Elvgren classic pinup to emulate, from a selection provided by the ladies at PFPB.

In short, we were off to the races…

NOTICE: No one believes modeling and photography are hard.  They hold this belief because they’ve never tried either on any serious scale.  We thought we’d spend a few hundred bucks and bust out a hundred fabulous shots.  About a thousand bucks later (yes), we ended up with only a handful of usable snaps, even with the much-needed assistance of my mom and a work friend I’d conned into helping!  There’s costuming, make-up and hair, props, equipment…and other variables, like a model who spent the hours between 2 AM and 7 AM standing watch with a 9mm pistol, a surprisingly hot sun and its attendant semi-naked sunbathers, and a dog who turns out to be a diva.  Not to mention that, this being Seattle, we had to plan for rain: Ben and my mom worked throughout the night to create an indoor studio in what had previously been our garage.

For all the difficulties, we did get a few nice shots, before both model and dog model were spent and melting.

Jaci’s favorite:

Ben’s favorite:

PFPB’s favorite and our final entry:

Ben used his mad Photoshop skills to sharpen the already bright and shiny images, we signed the contracts, and we sent off the pictures a few days before the final deadline.

The end result: we didn’t make the final cut.  But we had a great time, and felt like at the very least we were supporting a cause that we became believers in thanks to our “accidental pitbull.”  Pinups for Pitbulls, by the way, has achieved official nonprofit charity status and has frequent events in Pennsylvania and across the eastern seaboard.

Would we do it again?  I don’t know.  Compared to brewing beer, modeling/photography is considerably more expensive and frustrating as a family activity.  Maybe not this year…but watch out, 2012, you might see a return of the Tipsy Bear Studios!

Christmas Card Picture

Jaci and I have decided that Christmas cards should be a permanent fixture of the holiday time for our family. I believe in the past we have sent out cards to just family, but this year was the first year that we gave some thought into the matter, and therefore we hope the beginning of successful card giving from here on out. To that end, we created our master Christmas Card list- the one that shall be edited in the future based on naughtiness or niceness with the Bengforts- and we staged our first photo shoot in a hopefully long line of Christmas card photo shoots.

Because many of you were so impressed with the card, we thought that we should share it online now that Christmas is over and everyone should have already received their card. Also, some of you who did receive cards may not recognize this picture, and we figured we had better explain why before we got into trouble (we hope to maintain our niceness on other’s Christmas card lists!) First- if you didn’t receive a print card, that is completely my fault. Our list was fairly short in the beginning- so I only ordered 20 cards, however, during the shipping of the cards, the list ballooned past 40, so as a stop gap measure, we printed pictures and included them in some store bought cards. Also, if you received the so called “nice family picture”, that was because we didn’t realize what a hit the picture would be, and thought we had better also look semi-sane to our relatives. Our bad- if you want a copy of the card picture (or the nice picture) let me know and I can make that happen!

Secondly- the question I get most commonly: “Were Winston’s eyes photoshopped?”  No, in fact it was not! While I did use Photoshop to produce that nice warm yellow and red tone to the picture, create good color contrast and balance, and generally touch up the picture, Winston and his eyes are pure products of his doggy modeling ability. Our original intent was that I would be lifting him to the top of the tree as the angel on top. After two attempts at this, both Winston and I felt that we couldn’t keep that up. Instead, we switched over to the pointing method. Winston still refused to cooperate, probably due to the previous two episodes where I was trying to pick him up. However, during the 10th attempt, he finally sat- and this was the resulting image!

We were incredibly lucky to get this shot, and in only 10 tries! As you can see from the nice picture below, Winston refused to behave for even the nice pictures, but we were glad we caught him so photogenically! Here’s hoping your little angels cooperated more this holiday! Happy Boxing Day!

The Nice Family Picture