If you’ve lived in Eugene for some time, you know the city has a vibrant community of people who are young and old from all walks of life. Nobody has a greater appreciation for the faces of Eugene than Peggy Iileen Johnson, a local fashion portrait photographer who has been capturing the many faces of Eugene since moving here in 2004. With clients ranging from business professionals and students to aspiring models, Johnson made a career from her passion for people, celebrating 40 years of doing what she loves.
Much of Johnson’s work is with fashionable portraiture, shooting portrait photographs of clients that emphasize their clothing, and modeling headshots, which she does to help young people build a modeling portfolio and give them a platform to get into the business.
“I’m trying to help the girls and guys that want to go off and be models,” Johnson said. “I send them out looking for clothes that are new and things that they think they can model. Right now in Eugene that’s what I’m doing: helping young models get into the business.”
Collaborating with clients, Johnson directs them to her website to get a sense of what others have done, and she works with various style categories and her own curation of specific outfit combinations based on their needs. She provides them with a rundown of different looks they can bring, like grunge, bridesmaid, hippie, downtown girl and schoolboy. She supplies clients with a starting point for how to build their modeling look.
“We’re talking fashion, so it’s really important to me that they bring the right clothes with them for whatever they’re doing,” she said. “Then when they’re here, I have to say I kind of teach them about the business, because as a model they’re all noobies.”
Well before coming to Eugene, Johnson got her start in the photography business living in Hollywood, originally working as an accountant at the time. She began dating a boy who had just graduated from Brooks Institute, a photography school. Eventually he brought her to his studio where he was assisting another photographer, opening her eyes to a new world that she fell in love with from the start.
“I got to learn everything just by being there,” Johnson said. “And then I quit my $20 an hour accounting job and went to work for $5 an hour at a camera store, and I worked at Pizza Hut at night. We do what we have to do, and it’s God-driven — I can’t believe that I did that.”
Selling her first piece in 1982, she officially began her professional career in photography. Her first pieces were mainly art pieces, many of which she sold from stores on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. She soon crossed paths with actor and comedian Kevin Nealon, who happened to live in the same apartment complex as her. He told her she should go see his agent, and soon enough she kickstarted her full-time career in photography, shooting actors’ headshots.
“Doing Hollywood headshots just taught me to really see people. To really see and study faces,” Johnson said.
In 1999, after almost two decades working with Hollywood actors, she moved to Sedona, Arizona, where she lived for five years shooting weddings. She eventually grew tired of the city and wanted to pursue something more.
“I wasn’t happy in Sedona,” she said. “It was a grind because we were shooting weddings whether it was 16 degrees or 116 degrees outside on the land, which is where we did it. So I really wanted to find another place.”
Eventually, Johnson began looking at other cities, hoping to find a place to shoot faces again. She traveled all over, but she just kept coming back to Eugene, where she eventually settled.
“I wanted to shoot faces. I love faces,” she said. “The people here are beautiful. There are just beautiful people here, and I’ve just had a great time.”
Now for nearly 20 years, Johnson has been Eugene’s go-to portrait photographer for all people who want to capture their best selves, including young models wanting to enter the industry. To her, photo shoots are more than just taking pictures — it’s about getting to know people and hearing their stories.
“Everybody that comes into the studio, even the people that come in for business stuff, they just have a story to tell. I learn something from everybody,” Johnson said. “While I’m not much of a social person, when I’m with someone one-on-one and I’m going to shoot them, boy I want to know them.”
Johnson wants to take her passion for people and inspire the Eugene community to embrace their beauty, and she hopes her photography can do that.
“If they have a good photographer, they can see how beautiful, how handsome they are, and then they can go forward feeling confident about themselves,” she said. “I just think that’s the most important thing for me.”
After 40 years of doing what she loves and meeting so many people along the way, Johnson still celebrates people and life through her camera, and her time capturing the beauty of Eugene’s diverse community is far from over.