@katchlight twitter updates...
Lauren and Sam!!! Lauren is the daughter of a friend of mine, Debbie, you may remember their engagement shoot a while back!!
They tied the knot at Camas Meadows Golf Club and it was awesome!!!
Thanks Lauren, Sam and Debbie for allowing me to be a part of such an amazing day!
Here are a few of my faves….
We’re deep into wedding season now! I’ve just finished up 3 weddings in 3 days!!!
Quite a few of my weddings this year are as a lead associate for Powers Studios, and many of the images from those weddings are over on their blog.
Yesterday though, I was up at the lovely Bridal Veil Lakes photographing the gorgeous Christy and her new husband Chris!
What a fabulous day!!
Here are a few of my favorites – and congratulations to Christy and Chris, and all the best for a fantastic married future together!
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!
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:
Like a doctor who smokes, or a mechanic who has the worst kept car – photographers are notorious for not getting portraits of their own family, and I’m very guilty of that! So – I made a decision recently to get my youngest son, George, into the studio for some cool new portraits!
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.
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.
Ok folks – you’ve been very patient! We can’t show you the finished Animoto ad spot yet – that’ll have to wait till the magazines roll off the presses and hit the stands, but here is one from the other project we are working on…And boy was this fun to shoot!!
Not going to tell you where this one is headed…you’ll have to wait n see!
My last wedding for the year – Alicia and Tim! They had an amazing wedding, with a really cool bunch of family and guests. We started at The Nines in downtown Portland for some classy portraits, then we all headed to The Secret Society for the ceremony and party. It’s days like this that I truly love my job – weddings are a passion for me and I enjoy being part of a couple’s happy day, and this one was full of fun, emotion and romance…perfect!
My 2nd photographer for the day was the great Joel Bock – a fantastic photographer and cool to hang with too!
Alicia had her make-up expertly finished by Nicole Wagner – I’ve worked with her on several weddings and she’s always wonderful!
Here are a few of my faves as they came off the cards.
