An interview on VHS
Robbie Augspurger is a photographer living in Portland, Oregon. He’s mostly known for his slightly ironic fashion images for Numero Magazine and Balenciaga. We recently got the privilege to work with Robbie and took the opportunity to ask him some questions.
How did you get here?
I grew up in the midwestern US, in Peoria, Illinois, which is a couple hours south of Chicago in the middle of endless corn fields. My interest in photography developed when I was around 12 – mostly taking pictures of toys lined up on our sofa. I had a Kodak Ektralite 10 camera, which is a cheap 110 cartridge film camera. It was a hobby all through junior high and high school, and later in college I got more into it when I discovered my parents’ Pentax ME 35mm camera and pack film Polaroid models, like the Land Camera 100. The line between hobby and profession gradually blurred over the next 10 years or so.
I never studied photography, but my parents recognized early on that I was artistically inclined, and indulged my creative tendencies with art classes when I was real little. It all started with drawing silly pictures and multi-panel cartoons, and then I got into writing short stories. Photography, and later videos, was a way for me to bring it all together, I think.
I live in Portland, because that’s where I moved after college in 2004. I moved here with my friend and artist Eric Adrian Lee, with whom I make music and videos occasionally. So, I’ve got a lot of long-time friends in Portland that I enjoy working and goofing around with. I’ve really worked myself into the woodwork here – I’ve been running a VHS movie event called B-Movie Bingo at a local theater called The Hollywood Theatre since 2011. I’ve also come to learn Portland is fairly disconnected from the photography and fashion world, so that helps me in some ways, in that I’ve learned not get too caught up in what everyone else is doing.
My personal studio and workspace is in my basement, and though I’m comfortable working down there, it’s tiny and doesn’t have a high enough ceiling to anything other than portraits sitting-down. It’s where everything started for me, so it holds a nostalgic place in my heart. It works well for some things, but generally I shoot outside of Portland. I think being in Portland was important for me starting out, because I wouldn’t have done what I’ve done if I’d been anywhere else, because of the people I’ve met, and all the jumbled pile of experiences that added up to everything.
I never studied photography, but my parents recognized early on that I was artistically inclined, and indulged my creative tendencies with art classes when I was real little. It all started with drawing silly pictures and multi-panel cartoons, and then I got into writing short stories. Photography, and later videos, was a way for me to bring it all together, I think.
What inspires your quite peculiar pictures?
My inspiration comes from all over, as I imagine it does for everyone. Things get filtered through my brain, and my work comes out a certain way. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and so those old sitcoms and VHS movies all seep in. I worked at a photo lab after college, and liked to look through all the old prints in the back room when I got tired of cleaning the equipment. There were old wedding couple portraits, high school senior photos and family portraits. I still like to collect found photos.
I think one of the most important aspects for me, regarding making things, is collaboration and the ability to bounce ideas off of people. When everyone is included, in the mix and having fun, things just turn out better overall, in my experience.
Tell us a bit about your day to day.
When I’m not at a shoot or preparing for one, then a normal day is doing normal stuff like taking out the garbage and doing the dishes, and kind of thinking of ideas and keeping track of them in my “Idea Hoard”. I also spend a fair amount of time tuning my harpsichord.
You recently collaborated with Nordic Knots, what was the idea behind the images?
The idea for Nordic Knots was a take on the idea of look books, like each rug was a “look” for a season. So, each season had one image featuring the rugs in different contexts, like a nice family picnic by the sea and a man in a vest serenading his lady friend. Visually, I was imagining the cut-and-paste comped together photo ads I’ve seen in copies of Life magazines from the 1950s.
We also wanted some kind of Swedish elements in the photos, even though I shot the series in Portland on a green screen. So certain props or wardrobe lean that way, and in general I styled everyone out of date, and not all of the environments are practical for what the people are doing in the scenes. The two portraits of the guys wearing the rugs as a poncho and a scarf were a lot of fun to shoot, as we got to cut the rugs up with giant scissors.
What’s next?
Right now I’m looking to do some fashion editorials and a bit of touring, and I’m not sure what else. I haven’t been able to predict anything so far with my career, so I just try to be ready for whatever.
