Inferno « Katchlight – Photography by Mike Long

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Posts Tagged ‘Inferno’

Cake smash birthday portraits

April 28, 2011

Or – to put it another way…happy 40th birthday to me!! Yup. In a few hours I’ll be 40 years old…hardly seems possible. Anyway, to celebrate this achievement (many thought I wouldn’t make it) I thought I’d have some fun.

While in Toronto recently to present a seminar on wedding photography at the NoBS Inferno, I asked my good friend, Kelly Scaccia, to help out with something dumb for my blog. She’s an amazing baby photographer so she was the perfect choice for a cake smash celebration! This was great fun to do, but I’d not recommend any adults doing this…least not sober! Even after a good shower I was still finding chocolate in my ears and nose hours later!!

Thanks to my awesome buddy James Hodgins for videoing the fun for me, and of course to Kelly for taking the pictures.

Tags: cake smash, Inferno, James Hodgins, Kelly Scaccia, Mike Long, NOBS
Posted in Babies, Photography, Pin-Up, workshops | No Comments »

Live from Nashville!

November 4, 2009

I feel that I haven’t been posting much – it’s been a busy couple of weeks here! I’m currently in Nashville at the NoBS Photo Success Inferno Bootcamp workshop. NoBS is the BEST photo forum on the web, and I’m lucky enough to be a part of it. Run by Rob Provencher and James Hodgins you won’t find a better place on the net to learn, connect and grow your photography business.

This year, Rob and James invited me to speak, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours talking about my pin-up photography and then performed a live photo shoot with two models. The first model was Kourteney, a local girl who was amazing…her first time as a pin-up and she rocked it. The second model was a surprise one, and more details of that later on!!!

Speaking and teaching to other photographers is something that I love to do, and will be doing much more of in the future.

Nashville is also where Mama Shan and I debuted Pindora’s Box – a wonderful set of tools for photographers. If you shoot pin-ups, boudoir, kids, seniors, weddings….anything! then Pindora’s Box will take your images to the next level, and beyond.

More from Inferno soon, including some behind the scenes videos from my pin-up presentation.

Tags: Inferno, James Hodgins, NoBS Photo Success, Rob Provencher, workshop, World's Best Pin up photographer
Posted in Misc, News, Photography, Pin-Up | No Comments »

Big things for Katchlight

October 23, 2009

So – I’ve been a bad blogger again. Good reason though, I’ve been in bed sick for over a week with flu. Urgh. Rough.

No more complaining though! On with the good news…

As readers will know – (see post right below this one!) Pindora’s Box is ready for the public, and I’m as giddy as a schoolboy. It’s AWESOME. Mama Shan and I are really happy with the final product, and we think that pin-up photographers will love it. In fact, it’s suitable for other portrait photographers too. Our launch date is November 1st, and we’re ready!

In a week I’ll be heading to Nashville for the NoBS Inferno, where I’ll be speaking to over 100 photographers from around the country. My presentation this year will be a live pin-up shoot! The day before and the day after the Inferno I’ll also be presenting my own ‘Retouching Junction’ workshops with high end retouching on offer.

Next year I’m planning more workshops for photographers, stay tuned for news on that in the New Year.

I’m also deep into rebranding Katchlight here. People often ask ‘why Katchlight’? Well, when I first started out on my photographic adventure I did use my name, Mike Long, but it seems I wasn’t the first Mike Long in the world to take up photography, and someone already nabbed the domain name, so I searched for something that brought to mind photography…they were all taken. Katchlight – (the photographic term is catchlight) came to mind, and I’ve had it ever since. I often think of just being ‘Mike Long Photography’ but I don’t want to get clients confused with the other Mike Long, who also shoots weddings.

So until I can get that domain name, my brand will be Katchlight, and I’m going to be altering the branding over the winter, with new packaging products and maybe a new logo too.

Weddings for next year are booking at a furious pace – so if you, or someone you know, is getting hitched…don’t delay. I have a few select dates still open, but once booked…that’s it!

This week I had a web designer compliment me on my Portland Pin-Ups website, which is high praise indeed. It’s worth mentioning that I am available to design any website you need…with a focus on photographers of course!

That’s it for now – have a great weekend!

Tags: awesome pinup, bridal, Inferno, North West, Portland Wedding Photography, Retouching
Posted in News, Photography, Pin-Up | No Comments »

NOBS Inferno Shootout!

November 10, 2008

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.

Tags: Alison Berk, Andy Armstrong, competition, Inferno, James Hodgins, Mike Long, NOBS, photo, Photography, photoshop, Retouching, shoot-out
Posted in Featured, Photography | No Comments »