Another session with Dottie Diamond - or, as she is otherwise known, Miss Portland Pin-up 2009! Sadly, that crown has nothing to do with my company, Portland Pin-ups...odd eh?!

Here she is in a old bonnet, and struggling with a wayward stocking. More to come soon...

Wow - we're a month into 2009, every year they go faster right?

I'm late mapping out my goals and plans for this year, but I do know it's going to be the biggest and best for me both in terms of business and art.

For the studio, Craig and I are pushing the wedding and portrait photography to a new level, and might possibly be moving to a new studio sometime before the summer. We are expanding the advertising retouching and plan to work with some major agencies and photographers.

My pin-up photography is taking off, and I want take this into a whole new area, and create a custom product that no-one else in Portland is offering.

Big big projects this year, and the main one is going to take me most of the year to complete. No details, it's secret!! But it is going to be pin-up in nature, but also dark, comical and cool. The plan is to create a series of 12 images that will form a gallery show and maybe, possibly, a book. I've got some great models involved and start shooting it next week.

I'm also going to start to use some cars in portfolio shoots and they start in early Spring.

And so Mr Bush has left the White House. So long. Farewell. America starts a new journey today, and we, along with many others, enjoyed watching President Obama as he was sworn in this morning. We went to a coffee shop on Interstate - no big screen TVs, just a little one with rabbit ears! The atmosphere was electric, and no matter which way you ultimately voted, today is a truly historic one and it's our duty to take the challenge laid out by the President and once again make America great. To be here and be part of it was something special - and as one of our friend's said...'never watched an inauguration before!' - and most people probably haven't either. There was never a real reason to in the past. Today feels like a very good day!

I'm just back from a great week in Miami - relaxing after a busy summer of weddings, portraits and pin-ups and getting some sun before the full winter kicks in here in Portland! Miami is a bit like LA - full of rich, beautiful people with way too much money and cars that cost more than my house! Still - it was sunny..for the most part...and I got to hang out with my best buddy Steve for a week. Downside was I was away from my wife and son for a week. Here are a few quick shots - more to come.

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.

As you may have read - I'm in Nashville tonight for a photography convention, and damn good fun it's been. It's also been an amazing night being here in the US during the most historic election in recent history. I don't "do" politics - I live in the USA, I pay my taxes, but they won't let me vote for another 2 years or so...so to avoid any tension I generally stay away from political debates...however....

GO OBAMA!!!

I honestly feel that Obama is going to push America forward in a great new direction...something that has been lacking for the last 8 years. Of course, everyone in England thought that Tony Blair would do that for the UK, and look how that turned out eh? Still, this guy LOOKS like President, SOUNDS like a President, and can pronounce nuclear...it's got to be a step up. The excitement here in America is spine tingling, and I'm so happy to have been here and seen it happen. Best of luck to the new President.

Mike.

No images today - maybe a few at the end of the week. I'm writing from a photography convention in Nashville, TN! I'm sitting in a room with over 100 awesome photographers from all over the States and many from Canada too. Tonight I'll be taking part in a Shoot-Out of photographers and retouchers...keep your fingers crossed for me!

Conventions like this are a great way to keep up with all the latest trends in photography, but also to mix with and swap ideas with some truly talented artists. I know most of these guys from an online forum, and it's been great to put faces to names.

My next stop is Miami for some sun, relaxing and of course shooting some of the amazing architecture down there!
In other news - stay tuned for a huge announcement about next years weddings...more soon!

Ok - so I've been a bad blogger....2 weeks since I last posted! Wedding season ended for me last week with the marriage of Stacy and Kyle up at Bridal Veil Lakes, and I've been busy catching up on processing, commercial work and some pin-ups and have just not updated the blog!! Sorry!

So - here are a few from my last wedding of 2008. If you are getting married in 2009 then get in touch, we have some awesome plans for next year!