Photographer Brings Back the '80s Glamour Shot and They're Totally Rad

Robbie Augspurger is a professional photographer from Portland, Oregon with a grand affinity for the generation of "Back to the Future," big hair, and stone washed jeans. He's started an ongoing '80s glamour shot series that began when a friend asked him to take his actor headshots. To prepare for the shoot, Augspurger bought a 30 year old Photogenic FlashMaster light kit and asked his roommate to pose for some shots in a three-piece tweed suit. With inspiration from photographs found in an old shoe box, or on the dashboard of his dad's pick-up truck, he had a concept in motion: creating vintage thread clad characters for the portrait series "Glamour & Headshots".

Augspurger vividly remembers sitting for mall portraits when companies like Olan Mills ruled the roost of cheesy glamour shots." Having worked in a photo lab years ago that had a back room where all the old work was stored, I’d seen plenty of it. I thought it was funny, that at the time they were made, these portraits were considered standard portraiture. I wanted to see how far I could take that aesthetic," said Augspurger. With a semi-serious approach, each subject is given a character. “I’ll tell [them], ‘Okay, you are Bud Kaiser and you work at Consolidated Affiliates and you are the company manager ... you still have to get the paperwork in and still have to do the company photo shoot and I am your photographer.’ And then I get their first reaction trying to be that person and that’s often the best photo,” states Augspurger. "That being said, I also try to make the kind of photography that I want to see and grabs me on an emotional level."

Steering clear of professional models, Augspurger photographs friends who don't have any reservations to looking goofy. With a collection of vintage clothing to choose from, there have been some pretty classic characters all stemming from that very first actor headshot (tennis pro). Augspurger is always on the look of for new props. "Right now I want to find those glasses that the nuclear engineer back in 1982 would have used while he was standing there shifting levers.”

[via Wired and Robbie Augspurger]