Katchlight - Photography by Mike Long » Alison Berk

Elisa and Joe – Portland Wedding Photography

MikeLong — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:34:14 +0000

First wedding of what is going to be a very busy year!! Meet Elisa and Joe, two great friends of mine, and I was lucky enough to be asked to capture their wedding at the UP chapel, and then the fun at Urban Studio in downtown Portland.

For my first wedding this year, I asked a good friend of mine, Alison Berk, from Humboldt Canada to fly down to 2nd shoot for me and I can’t wait to see her vision of the day! We also had another good friend, Dawn Schubert from California come up to assist too!!

I’ll be shooting 30 weddings this year – some for my company, Katchlight, and some as a lead associate for Powers Studios and I’m looking forward to every one of them!

Fun in the Canadian Sun

MikeLong — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:27:26 +0000

We had some time in Humboldt, Canada, to mess around and play. Our hostess, Alison Berk, wanted to experiment with a technique called ‘off camera flash’ which is where you fire a remote flash to balance with the sun – something I use at weddings all the time.

These shots then are kind of jointly made by myself, Alison and Andy!

Contact Me Pin-Up Portfolio Stuff for photographers

No Limits: North Humboldt group shot

MikeLong — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:30:13 +0000

Here’s the motley crew of photographers that braved the cold to come learn some cool glamour, fashion and pin-up photography and post-processing in Humboldt recently.

Contact Me Pin-Up Portfolio Stuff for photographers

2010 No Limits: Canadian tour…video…

MikeLong — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:14:50 +0000

Couple of videos of us messing around in Humboldt, where it’s…erm…rather cold! Videos from Toronto coming soon, including one with James Hodgins at the top of the CN Tower!

Contact Me Pin-Up Portfolio Stuff for photographers

Canadian beds triple boing…

MikeLong — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:39:46 +0000

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!

Contact Me Pin-Up Portfolio Stuff for photographers

NOBS Inferno Shootout!

MikeLong — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:35:24 +0000

While at the NOBS Photo Success Inferno last week, I took part in the Shoot Out. This was an amazing night where 6 photographers were thrown a challenge and then 6 retouchers worked their magic on the images.
The photographers were matched with a retoucher by pulling names from a hat, and I was lucky enough to get James Hodgins – the co-founder of NOBS, an awesome photographer and top guy too! All the photographers were secluded outside the main room and brought in one by one to shoot. They had one large strobe, a desk lamp and a reflector for lighting and had to use a chaise as a prop. They had a lovely model to work with and just 5 minutes to set up and shoot a perfect image. James read my mind and took apart the desk lamp and used the shade on the model’s head, which I thought was going to be our shot…but then he had a flash of inspiration and took the bulb out, cooled it then stuck it in the model’s mouth!! I was cursing him as I only had 15 minutes to retouch the image, and I’d have liked an hour on that one!
We had a break after all the photographer’s had shot, then we all downloaded at once and had 3 minutes to choose an image. I was in between the shade/head shot and the bulb/shot..but thought what the hell, and picked the bulb one! I then had 15 minutes to retouch the image anyway I wanted with a crowd of about 30 people milling around me! I had great fun working this way and going up against some of the best retouchers around. The overall winner was Jason Abbott – a great photographer (and new friend) from Texas. His image was retouched by the awesome Shelly Harrington. The whole evening was organised by another great new friend of mine, Alison Berk from Humbolt, Canada. She spent the night in character as Sarah Palin (who?!)

Here are all the photographers and retouchers and me working hard with an audience. Images courtesy of Tommy Cooper Photography.

And here is the image that James shot and my final version…I used a blue action from the amazing Andy Armstrong’s Design|House set. Andy was one of my competitors and he’s also now a firm friend.