As a designer and lover of art, I’ve been obsessed with owning a SLR camera for quite sometime. Over the holidays, I purchased my very own — a Canon Rebel T1i.

I brought my camera with me on my travels to Portland and New York — the old-school Canon strap around my neck in all my tourist glory. Check out some of my photos here.

I wanted to experience a professional shoot, so I asked Robb Long, a former colleague and owner of Robb Long Imaging, if I could tag along. He invited me to his female samurai shoot. He said it would be a sexy deadly combo — and he wanted to use a sword.

The shoot was at an old warehouse in Northeast Minneapolis, the studio of Kerry Riley, owner and designer of Red Shoe Clothing, Co., who created the samurai costume.

Robb showed me his light set-up and a little about his style. He prefers hard light and plans out each shoot with a specific vision. I really noticed this when he started directing the shoot . Robb knew exactly where everything should go — air, limbs, sword — everything belonged somewhere.

I’d describe Robb’s style as movie poster meets dude from Minnesota. Every photo tells a story, he said. And an awesome one. Check out a few of my favorites:

Photo by Robb Long Imaging

Photo by Robb Long Imaging

We were talking about cameras and Robb said something that I really liked. It’s not the camera, but who’s behind it. I couldn’t agree more.

Robb also told me about a Minneapolis event I’ve never heard of: Fashion Fight Night 4 at Uppercut Boxing Gym in NE Minneapolis. Six teams of photographers and models compete in a head to head fashion photography shootout. Robb said this “dress to impress” night is going to get pretty crazy. That’s probably because he’ll be participating this year.