@katchlight twitter updates...
Ah – Lauren and Sam!!!
I’m going to be shooing their wedding at the end of the month and it’s going to be a blast!
Lauren is my friend Debbie’s daughter. I met Debbie via a great online photography site:
and she asked if I could shoot their wedding!
I have another great friend, Jason Abbott, from Texas flying up to help out – and I can’t wait!
Here are some faves from the day:
One of the reasons I love wedding photography is that I get to make cool new friends! Two such people are Michelle and Dmitri. Any engagement session that starts with a couple of beers in a bar has to be good! We had a ton of fun wandering around the Mississippi area of Portland, even if Michelle scraped her leg at the end!
Fave shots of the day:
Meet Kay and Seth! They are getting married in August, and we had some fun today shooting their engagement session! Their dog, Bell, also came along for the ride!!
Another day, another awesome Animoto video! Love these guys!
Here, in just over 3 minutes, are my favorite images from the 2009 season. 2010 is fully booked for weekend weddings, I do have a few open weekdays though. Now booking for 2011 and 2012!
Meet Christy and Chris – my first e-session of the year! These guys are getting married in July, and we’ve been trying to fit in a session in between the rain for a few weeks. Today the weather played nice, and these guys rocked it! Can’t wait to shoot their wedding.
As you can see – still hard at work here in the great frozen North!! We are now in Toronto for a few days relaxing before heading off for Humboldt…where it’s -17 degrees right now! I have a pretty bad sinus infection going on and am totally deaf in one ear and now can’t speak either!! But we are having fun, and the first workshops were a blast. Thanks to all who came!
More shots and videos from the road later…
Here is James Hodgins, Andy Armstrong and myself mid-flight…and yes, my bed did take a pounding from this!
So here’s a quick inside glance of me hard at work in Canada!! This is James Hodgins, co-owner of NoBS Photosuccess, and an awesome photographer, testing the springs on the beds at our hotel.
Our conclusion was that they were rather springy….
2009 – review…
So – here we are in a new decade! I planned to write a nice end-of-year wrap up to post just before New Year’s Eve, but I’ve been so busy that it got put off till now! I’m writing from my hotel room in Nashville, where I’m showing Pindora’s Box at the PPA Imaging USA trade show.
2009 was a great year for Katchlight and Portland Pin-Ups, and 2010 is going to be even better!
Here’s a brief rundown of my the last 12 months of my life – both professionally and personally.
The biggest thing to impact me in the last year was the arrival of my son, George! Alison and I are over the moon with the little chap, and his brother Henry is a very proud sibling! It’s challenging for sure having a 3 year old and 3 month old, but I’m sure once they are older it’ll all be worth it. I have to send a massive cyber kiss and hug to my wife, Alison, here – as she is a stay at home Mummy, and works harder than anyone I know. I couldn’t ask for a better Mother for my kids, and thank my lucky stars every day that I found her!
I shot more weddings last year than any year for many – and ended up with 20 on the calendar…and each and every one of them was not only great fun, but also allowed me to meet fantastic, romantic and wonderful people. I honestly haven’t had a year like that in my wedding photography career – I love shooting weddings anyway, but each one just got better and better – so to each of my couples from last year – thankyou for being awesome! I’ve helped create some memories for them, and made some great lifelong friends too.
Portland Pin-Ups has been my baby for a few years now. It started out as a creative outlet for me to relax after long wedding days, or retouching the latest Adidas campaign, but during the last 12 months it’s taken a life of it’s own and is now starting to gain National attention. It’s taken me on journeys around the country to meet amazing people, it’s helped create a stunning product for photographers to help them with their pin-up work, it’s spawned a new career for me speaking and presenting workshops, and it’s going to send me off on new journeys this coming year too. After I return from Nashville I’m off to present a few workshops in Canada, then it’s off to Chicago to speak at the NoBS Inferno and back to Canada in May to speak at the PPOC Nationals. This is a huge honor for me, and I’m equal parts excited and petrified in equal measure!
The pin-up side of my business has also led to some great commercial work, most recently producing an Animoto ad and tour images for Sandy Puc’. This really came home to me here in Nashville when I walked in and saw my images of her on many of the stands in the trade show. When her tour starts later in the month, the pirate images will grace the tour bus too!
2010 plans are now behind schedule due to my traveling, but I already have some wonderful couples lined up for weddings, and plenty of travel and touring on the horizon too! Pindora’s Box is only just beginning, and Mama Shan and I are planning our next products in the line.
In the next few days I’ll be posting my favorite images from last year!
Here’s the 2010 – should be a cracking year!
Cheers
Mike.
Meet Lisa and Justin – getting married in November we spent this evening running having fun in the Portland Rose Garden for their engagement session. Enjoy!
Meet Ashley and Ben. This couple rank as one of my funnest wedding couples ever! They are getting married at the beach in August, and they wanted something different and cool for their engagement portraits – so we headed into the studio and shot a pin-up inspired session!!
The results….well – they both look stunning!
These guys came to me via Powers Studios, who I’m shooting some of my weddings for this summer.
