Jay Long Photography

Holy Crap

2007-07-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Man have I been neglecting my Blog or what? In my defense things have been hectic for me. I don't have much news as far as my photography goes but I have a lot of personal stuff happening. First I went back to work just because I need more money for equipment, promotion, and of course survival. The pay is significantly less than I was making at my last job but the benefits are amazing and I get them right away. Also Christi is having surgery on Monday so that has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm sure she'll be fine but I can't help but worry. Then we're moving in mid August to a bigger place in the same complex, and I'm renting one of the garages available to use as a studio. Once I get it up and running I will be lot more serious about setting up some photo shoots. So that's most of what's up with me. Keep checking back because I might just get that burning desire to make some photos and have some new stuff to put up.

FINALLY SOME NEW STUFF

2007-06-28T14:17:00.001-07:00

So I finally have some new stuff to put up so I'm just going to shut up and let the photos speak for themselves.

Photo of the Day

2007-06-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

I know I've been slacking about posting but there's not a lot of new stuff going on with me lately. I'm still working on finishing up the tutorials I've been working on and trying to get the word out there that I'm available to hire. So anyway here is The Photo of the Day. This photo was taken at a the Brigittine Monastery right outside of Amity, OR. I stopped there one time on my way back from the coast to pick up some of their amazing fudge and truffles.

Been a long time.

2007-06-11T21:00:00.001-07:00

Holy cow it's been a long time since I've posted. The reason is because I haven't been doing a whole lot of photography lately. I've really just been doing a lot of learning. I have a ton of tutorials for different software that I've been meaning to get through and was slacking on for a while. So that's what Ive been doing, catching up on tutorials. I also got a new iPod so I've been filling it with music and Podcasts. I recently got a few responses from some models that want to work with me unfortunately they can only do TFCD/TFP work (for those who don't know that means "trade for CD, or prints"). Which is cool but I need to make some money. I've actually decided to go back to work for a while until I start school in fall. I haven't really been bringing in much money with the photography so I figured it's time to bite the bullet. I know this is just part of stating a business and it's temporary so it's no big deal. I actually did manage to go out shooting the other day. I took a drive to NW Portland to the industrial side of town and managed to get a few good shots, so here a couple that I liked.

2007-06-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Well I heard from my model and it turns out she didn't flake on me after all. Apparently her son had a sever allergic reaction to something and had to be rushed to the hospital. She sent me a message on Myspace late last night and told me she would give me a call sometime today. Unfortunately though the funds that I had set aside for expenses has now been allocated for other uses. I guess that means we might have to do a shoot a little closer to home.

Today's Photo of the Day is another panorama from Canon Beach, OR. It's one of the sunset shots that I took on my spontaneous beach trip.

Models!

2007-05-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

So I was going to do the desert shoot today I had a model lined up I built a scrim and had money put aside to cover expenses. My model was contacting me regularly and she really seemed like she was on the ball. She called on Tuesday to confirm and I told her I would solidify everything the next day and we could go over all the details then. She did express some concern about the sitter she had lined up not being able to watch her kids until later morning. I was flexible with the time to accommodate this set back. So then when I tried to call her yesterday there was no answer. I tried her three times and nothing. Needless to say there was no way to get another model on such short notice so the shoot didn't happen. That's ok though it's the nature of the business. Models flake that's what they do. Ironically enough this girl had read my previous post about flaky models and went out of her way to assure me she wouldn't flake, but she did. I really hope that nothing serious happened to her but it's probably just another case of an unreliable model.

On another note; I want to give a shout out to one of my oldest and dearest friend Kierstin who has been really going out of her way to help promote me on myspace. So today's photo of the day is dedicated to her. Thanks you so much Kier for all your support. I chose this photo because it reminded me of all of us camping on the beach at Humboldt Lagoons State Park outside of Orick, CA. I hope you all like it and thanks again Kier.

First wedding

2007-05-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

I booked my first wedding yesterday and man is it a weird situation. Apparently the bride's mom is a bit of a photographer herself and is absolutely insisting on shooting the wedding herself. Lucky for them the bride and groom were smart enough to realize that mom is probably going to be having too much fun to be on her game. The problem is mom is very adamant that they not HIRE a photographer. I understand she wants to feel needed. So I am going to pose as a friend of the grooms and mom isn't going to know that I was hired to shoot the wedding. The story is I'm a friend of the groom who has agreed to just come and shoot the wedding as a favor and to build my portfolio. Which is partially true. SO this is going to be an interesting story for future clients. So I hope everyone is enjoying my blog if you have any suggestions to make it more interesting, or if there is something you want to see let me know I'm always looking for new ideas.

Todays photo of the day is one of my favorites. This guy was just a character I ran across one day when I was shooting down town.

2007-05-24T21:23:00.002-07:00

I was looking back at my posts and realized that almost all my photos I've posted so far have been black and white. This isn't something I've done consciously, I just love black and white. So I thought I'd make another post and show some of my color stuff. I hope you all like them.

2007-05-24T20:04:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I may have been a little over zealous when I said I was going to post everyday. I have been busy though so at least I have an excuse. Lets see what have I been up to. . . ? Well on Tuesday I met with a model. Her name is Nicole and she is the model I referred to to in my previous post. We met up and had a couple beers, got to know each other and set a date for a shoot. She is excited and so am I. I'm not sure if we are going to be able to do the desert shoot or not because of financial reasons. The main reason is because in order to do the desert shoot right it really needs to be an overnight shoot so we can do some sunrise shots and I just cant afford to put up a crew in a hotel. I thought about seeing if she was open to camping out but I really want Christi to come and she has to work Tuesday, and Nicole has 2 kids so leaving them overnight probably isn't feasible. So we are thinking of shooting at Nicole's friends ranch which she has offered the use of. This will be good becasue it's private property and fairly secluded so that's a plus.

So I've also been busy with a construction project . I want all my outdoor shoots to be a success but in order to shoot in direct sunlight it's pretty much essential to diffuse the sunlight some way. Most pros accomplish this with what's called a scrim. You theater/photography types probably know what a scrim is but to the layman, it's basically a big screen that is placed between the subject and the light source to diffuse harsh overhead light, or sunlight in this case. Unfortunately a low end scrim can easily run $500 so I decided to design and build my own. I used 3/4" PVC pipes to build a frame and white rip-stop nylon for the diffuser. The whole thing ended up costing right around $40. Once all the glue dries and I put it together for the first time I'll shoot some pictures of it and post them. I also needed a reflector and they are around $50+ so I found a white, heavy vinyl roll up window blind at a thrift store that has a navy blue back so no light passes through. It was only $3.99, and I'm using left over PVC to build a frame for it. So I basically got a scrim and a reflector for under $50, how awesome is that? Plus it's been fun building it.

I also got a phone call yesterday morning from my Craig's List ad for a wedding shoot. I'm meeting with the couple on Saturday morning. It's a rather interesting situation too, but I'll elaborate in another post. Things are really starting to go pretty well, now the trick is to keep this momentum going.

Anyway, I was going to make todays photo of the day a test shot that I made when I met with Nicole but she was completely casual and not wearing any makeup so I'm going to wait and post some photo's from the shoot instead. So today's Photo of the Day is a shot from Canon Beach Oregon of Haystack Rock. I was going crazy with boredom a couple weeks ago and Christi and I were driving around looking for something to do, and I just pointed the car west and drove to Canon Beach. We got there just in time to catch the sunset and I was able to make this dramatic black and white panorama. I did get some good photos of the sunset but sunsets are just so cliche`, plus you rarely see black and white landscapes these days. My friend Lori wrote me an email today and she told me she recently watched a documentary about Ansel Adams. She mentioned she thought of me when she was watching it, so I'm dedicating todays photo to Lori and to Ansel Adams. I really love that I can share some of the beauty of Oregon with my east coast friends, so enjoy!

How I got started in photography.

2007-05-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

My interest in photography started in about 1997 right after I moved back to Pennsylvania, from Memphis. I was working a part time job at a grocery store and barely making enough money to get by. One day I saw an ad for a correspondence school and I thought what the hell it beats what I'm doing now. So I gave them a call to see what they had to offer. I guess I was looking for ANYTHING to give me some skills to get out of that grocery store. The school had courses available in things like Gun Repair, Locksmithing, and bookkeeping, and a bunch of others, few of which interested to me. I gave then a call but wasn't intereted in most of what they had to offer until the girl I was talking to mentioned photography. That's pretty much where it all started. I signed up, got my course materials in the mail and started studying my ass off. I was still struggling so I did some research on cameras that I could afford and I came across the Pentax K1000. In my research I learned that the K100o was one of the best learning cameras and even better it was budget friendly. I also learned it was the camera a lot of pros honed their chops on. So I picked one up at my local camera shop for around $100 and just started shooting. I started taking photos everywhere I could and I eventually built up a good sized catalog. I'm a traveler by nature so I didn't stay in PA very long. Late 1998 I ended up in New Orleans while hitching to San Francisco to go to art school. But there was something about that city that kept me there. Everywhere I looked there was inspiration, the music, the art, the culture, the architecture, the food, New Orleans was a photographers dream. I got a job working as a door man at a bar in the French Quarter and I loved it. I was 23, I was getting paid to hang out at a bar and meet people. I bought my first automatic SLR (Nikon N60) with the money I made after my first Mari Gras. Not long after that I started getting paid gigs. It started with some musicians I'd met in The Quarter, then I started getting approached by the local strippers to shoot portfolios for them. Over the years photography has pretty much been my passion. Even when I went through rough times and was forced to sell my camera to survive. The thing I love about photography is that it helped me truly see and appreciate the world around me. It also helped me to meet and become friends with some really amazing people. So as a tribute to my first paying photography gig, The Photo Of The Day is one of my very early (not my best) works for an old friend of mine, a New Orleans musician named John Autin.

You can check out John's music here. If you like what you hear pick up one of his CD's

2007-05-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

So I didn't post yesterday because I was very busy location scouting and networking with some models. I found two places for the desert shoot project which are perfect, but I'm torn. I know I'll shoot at both locations eventually, but which one first. The two places I've decided on are Fort Rock(Top), and The Painted Hills(Bottom). I like them both for very different reasons. Fort rock is beautiful and I love that it's this towering mass of rock just shooting up from the high desert floor, seemingly from nowhere. The Painted hills are just plain amazingly beautiful with the color and contours, they're breathtaking. But I think I'm going to go with Fort rock because from what I can tell they seem more desolate. The Painted Hills seem to draw more of a crowd making it harder to shoot nudes there. I'm also excited because I think I have a model who seems pretty eager and she promises not to flake. She is very beautiful and on top of that I believe she is mixed race so she has beautiful bronze skin which is going to look amazing in the desert sun. I'm really excited and I feel like this is all coming together. I cant wait to do this shoot. I was also looking for a makeup artist which I haven't found yet but I'm sure we can improvise. Christi (My girlfriend) said she is up to the task. The only hurdle is going to be funding. Since I'm just focusing on my photography right now (which I'm not making any money at yet) Christi is the only one working. As you can imagine things are tight, but I'll do what's necessary to make it happen. If there are any sponsors out there reading this feel free to contact me. If you'd like to support the arts you can donate funds using your debit or credit card by clicking on the PayPal link to the right. If you'd like to donate equipment take a look at my wish list by viewing my profile, or if you have used equipment (Photography, computer, props or interesting clothing) you'd like to donate that is always welcome too. Anyone who makes a donation of $10 or more will receive a 5x7" high quality digital print of my choosing, donations of $50 or more will receive a 8x10" signed and numbered limited edition digital print of your choosing, and donations of $100 or more will receive a framed 8x10" signed and numbered limited edition digital print of your choosing. If you make a donation make sure you send me an email at jaylongphotography@gmail.com with your address and PayPal confirmation number so I can send your print. If you can't donate, that's OK you can still show support by helping me spread the word. If you have an online profile (Yahoo, AIM, etc.) or a MySpace page feel free to give me a shout out or maybe even a link, any help and love is appreciated.

Painted Hills Photo taken April 8, 2004, by Pete Yamagata
Fort Rock photo credit information not available form source website.

Pic of the Day

2007-05-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

I know I missed yesterday so today I'm going to make up for it by posting 3 photos. The reason I missed yesterday is because I have been scouting for models on ModelMayhem.com. Check me out on there if you want , my number is 399126. If you're reading this and think you might want to give it a shot, then by all means drop me a line. I'm always looking for creative people to work with. Right now I can't pay for models so it would have to be TFP or TFCD but as I get rolling and start making money I will of course be paying cash. I have a shoot I'd like to find the right girl for. I was thinking of taking a day trip to Eastern Oregon to do some shots in the desert. I like the idea of the contrast of the rugged landscape with the soft beauty of the human form. I think this could make for some very interesting photos. Plus lately I have been in this mode where I'm just really shooting what's available which is landscapes and cityscapes and I thought this would be a good way to combine the two styles. I also want to check out some of the ghost towns out there and maybe do some creative shots of a model in an abandon building or outside in contrast to the decaying buildings. I have one person on modelmayhem who has shown an interest but it's been my experience that models flake all the time so I wont hold my breath just yet. Since I'm in that mode and wanting to work with models again here are a few of my early pieces with some of the first models I ever worked with.

Photo of the Day

2007-05-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

This Shot was taken in New Orleans in my friend (the model) Teresa's bathroom in January 2004. Teresa tends to lean more toward the dark side and wanted to do a shoot with fake blood in a bathtub as a staged horror scene. I had worked with Teresa in the past and we were good friends so we always had fun when we worked together. The shoot wasn't ideal, I was just coming out of a 2 year hiatus from photography so my gear was extremely limited. I was shooting with a Nikon Cool-pix 995, which wasn't the best camera but I was just making the leap to digital and couldn't afford a digital-SLR. We had no lighting for this shoot either so we improvised with a halogen torch lamp. A lot of the photos were unusable but thanks to the magic of Photoshop I was able to salvage a few and this is one of them. The fake blood we were using didn't photograph very well, it ended up looking orange so I decided to make them black and white which I think really worked well. Anyway this was one of the best ones to come out of that shoot so enjoy.

Photo of the Day

2007-05-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

This shot was taken at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Downtown Portland. I don't know who this gentleman was. He looked like just a guy hanging out maybe waiting for his bus enjoying a smoke after a long day of work.

Lightroom

2007-05-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally starting to get the hang of Adobe Lightroom. I was having some trouble at first because I'm used to the traditional way of working with files where you make a change and you just hit ctrl-s and it saves it. Lightroom works a little bit differently and I was having some trouble figuring out how to save my changes, but I'm finally getting the hang of it. I also downloaded Picassa just to check it out and see what Google was up to. I was surprised by how well it works for simple tasks. It's not something I could depend on for all my needs but for simple things like changing contrast or brightness it is really intuitive. It's a great free tool if you can't afford to buy Lightroom or Photoshop I definitely recommend checking it out. Plus it has a great organizer built in also.

I've decided that I am going to try to post to my blog everyday, I'm not making any promises so don't hold me to it. I'm at least going to do a photo of the day. It's probably going to be one of my own but I will probably feature some other photographers who I like also. My photo of the day today is one of mine. I like this photo because of the dept and the movement toward the vanishing point. Anyway I hope you like it too. Feel free to leave me some feedback

In The Beginning

2007-05-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm new to this whole blogging thing but I thought it would be a great way to promote my photography and let potential clients get to know me as person as well as the photographer they are thinking of hiring. So I guess I should start with some info about me.

Let's see, I've been studying photography and making photos for about the last 10 years or so. I moved to the Portland area almost 2 years ago. I was living in New Orleans previous to this and working as a part time freelancer for bands, musicians and models doing promo shots and portfolios. I actually left New Orleans in February of 2005 and went home to PA to visit my family for a few months before coming to Oregon. I was fortunate enough to get out of New Orleans before Katrina hit, but unfortunately almost my entire photo library was in storage there and was lost in the storm. As you can imagine it was a pretty devastating blow to have 10 years worth of work gone in an instant. But I count myself fortunate especially compared to all the people, including some of my very close friends who lost everything. Since arriving in Portland I put my photography on the back burner for a while until I got past the idea of starting my catalog from scratch. I've been working at various temp jobs and trying to make a living, and not doing badly financially, but I haven't been happy. Now I find myself at a point in my life where I need to get out from behind a desk and back to my true passion. And so I've decided to make reestablishing myself as a photographer my number one priority. I thought this blog would also be a great way to track my progress and have something too look back on once I become more established.

In the past I had an aversion to doing wedding photography, I think was my own fear of marriage that kept if from being interesting to me. Lately though as I get a little older and mature the idea is getting more appealing. It probably helps that I met a great girl here in Oregon and she has helped me get past my fear of marriage.

Since I am so new to the wedding aspect of photography I didn't think it would be fair to charge my normal hourly rates, so I came up with a package starting at just $400. What you get for that price is my services for 4 hours at up to 3 locations, a DVD with the digitally processed images (approximately 175-275 Shots), one 8x10, and twenty 4x6 high quality digital prints. Professional albums and prints of any of the images you choose are available for an additional charge. I'm interested in booking a wedding, product shoot, portfolio shoot, or any other job immediately. So if you need someone last minute don't hesitate to contact me. As I said I'm in the process of rebuilding my business so I don't have a website at this time but you can follow the link below to one of my photo albums to get an idea of my style. If you like what you see then drop me a line and let’s discuss your needs. I’m extremely flexible and I think you'lle find my prices to be very reasonable. Since I'm just getting started, I'm offering my services at a deeply discounted rater. Give me a call now so we can work out a package to fit your budget.

http://picasaweb.google.com/albumgeek/Portfolio