Katchlight - Photography by Mike Long » Andy Armstrong

WPPI Las Vegas recap

MikeLong — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:24:23 +0000

Phew. Well, it’s been a few days since I returned home from the WPPI conference in Las Vegas, and I’m now suitably recovered enough to give a quick rundown!!

This was my first WPPI, and what a way to start! The purpose of my trip was for networking – to meet sponsors for my workshops and speaking tours. I’m very happy to announce that it was a huge success, and would like to thank all who will be helping in the future! No name dropping yet, but some of the industry’s largest vendors will be partnering with me.

Aside from handshaking and back slapping, I also took some time to help my friend, Andy Armstrong, on his Design House stand for a while. Andy’s software is amazing, and I use it everyday, which is why I had no problem at all helping him through the show.

I’m a moderator at the NoBS Photo Success forum, and the co-creator/owner of the forum, James Hodgins, is a great friend of mine and we spent much of the time there meeting sponsors and generally having way too much fun. I also need to thank James (or Hodgy as he is known) for all his help – without him, and NoBS, I’d have no sponsors, and my business wouldn’t be where it is today. If you are a photographer – check them out!

Finally – I entered 3 prints in the 16×20 competition – my first time – and received an Accolade of Excellence for this shot of Mandy Apple, titled…’Next!?’.

Here are a few shots from Vegas – none of which were taken by me!! Most are from Hodgy, the group shot from Dan Morency – also from NoBS.

Can’t wait for next year!

The NoBS crew in the bar…before much beer…

Me, Rebecca (Animoto) and Hodgy

With Jerry Ghionis (Superstar!)

With Roy Ashen (Triple Scoop Music)

With the NoBS and Silverlake crew

Crusin the strip in style – in a limo!

WPPI – Vegas

MikeLong — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:50:26 +0000

Hey folks.

This post comes to you from Portland airport, where I’m waiting for my flight to Las Vegas for the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International conference! I’m going mainly to see some friends, shake the right hands and meet the right people to support my workshops for the future and help promote Pindora. It’s also going to be fascinating finding out how my prints did at the competition – I entered 3 in the portrait division.

I’ll also be help out my friend Andy Armstrong on his Design House stand – I use Design House all the time, and love it – it plays really well with Pindora. If you are in Vegas – come see us at the Design House stand!

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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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Pin-Up workshop!

MikeLong — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:43:02 +0000

In March, I’ll be hosting the first Portland Pin-Ups photography workshop. Open to professional photographers only, I’ll be going through my entire pin-up process including shooting a live model and post-processing too. The workshop is two full days, one with me, the other with awesome photographer and great friend of mine, Andy Armstrong. This workshop is not open to Portland area photographers – sorry guys, but I have to keep some secrets close for those in direct competition!!

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.