Deposit
When I was in Utah, I stopped to take a self-portrait on a little old bridge covered in snow (You can see that photo over on Flickr). While there, I noticed a post that is used for depositing money at the campsite in the summer months…stuff with an old rusty saw. Now, I have no idea what it was doing there. Maybe the forest rangers shove it in there during the offseason to stop junk from being thrown inside it, or maybe some prankster stuffed this thing in there..who knows. I thought it was funny looking and tried to get [...]
Howl: Some full moon photography
One of the things that drives me when it comes to photography is trying new things. I may be especially good at something, but I definitely would love to give it a shot. Doing that gives me an opportunity to expand my skills, learn a different way of doing something and enhancing my abilities to provide quality work. For example, I’ve never been able to really photograph the moon very well. Mostly because I didn’t have a really good zoom lens to get up close and personal with it, which are the kind of moon photos I tend to enjoy. [...]
The Spring Wildflowers of the Arizona Desert
A good friend of ours named Ryann had been traveling along the US 60 through Superior in the last week and made sure to point out to me all the wildflowers blooming along the highways and mountains. Plus I’d been keeping up with DesertUSA.com and all their reader wildflower reports. They mentioned how the flowers had been going nuts on Silver King Mine road just west of Superior, so I packed the wife and kid in the car Sunday afternoon and we took off. The first thing we noticed was the highway. From when you leave the Apache Junction area [...]
A few more shots of that building
A reader named Kathy asked for more shots of this abandoned building I found in the Wasatch National Park, so here are three more, non-HDR versions of the shot. I really loved the whole setting of this thing…the cliffs behind it was just fantastic. This is just a standard black and white of the building. After looking at these shots yesterday, it makes me want to go back and sneak a little closer! This is a two-shot “panoramic” stitch in Photoshop. I added quotes because to me a panoramic means wide, but this scene was so TALL, I had to [...]
Gallery now has my favorite portraits
A few days ago I updated my online gallery with a new album for portrait photography. Up until now I’ve only really showcased most of my landscape and weather photography on the gallery and I wanted to get my portrait stuff more visibility. Probably half of the gallery is my 16-month old daughter, but the rest are from three photoshoots I’ve done and a few other random friends and family. At this point, most of it involves children, but I’m hoping to expand that in the near future. The slideshow of the new gallery is below, I suggest making it [...]
Some graffiti on the Gila River Indian Reservation
Back in February my wife, my daughter and little ol’ me went for a short drive south of Chandler along State Route 87 and then took a turn into a road in the Gila River Indian Reservation. We found a very cool bridge (which is the first picture below) that was covered in graffiti. Coupled with the storm clouds, I was just loving this shot. But after we crossed it, we found this water diversion structure adorned in graffiti, and while to some it may be vandalism and a crime (which it probably is), I found it beautiful in the [...]
An old, abandoned building
This old building/small factory sits just off the north side of highway 210 east of Salt Lake City. I found it whilst exploring a few weeks ago. I posted a series of photos from that trip already, but there are still a few I haven’t gone through yet. This is actually two HDR photos stitched together in Photoshop. I loved the rocks and snow, the cliffs behind it. My only sadness was not being able to get inside. Probably some great shots in there.
Something different: Urban photography with Brian
Brian is starting a church down in central Phoenix, a place where God has led him and his family to reach the urban crowd. Downtown Phoenix isn’t like your normal big city downtown, at least those like San Francisco, New York, Boston, etc. It’s more spread out, there are wider spaces, houses and random sprawl. But it still has a central corridor and some high rise buildings. Brian wanted some photos of himself down there to use on his blog, or in other things that may come up. The goal was to capture not only photos of him, but also [...]
Clouds and Light
Clouds always fascinate me and I love catching them in cool displays of light, darkness and nature. The other morning we had a little storm system move through, so I ran out south of my house to see if there was anything awesome to shoot. The sun was still rising and it cast some great rays behind these clouds. I enjoy capturing clouds like this and enhancing their beauty through HDR and processing, or even just through simple black and white. These above are HDR with some color adjustments added to give it a fun look and really bring out [...]
Saguaro Sunset in the San Tan Mountains
A shot of a tall Saguaro cactus with the sun setting behind it. I drove out to the southeast side of the San Tan Mountains on Friday afternoon, hoping to find some flowers to photography at sunset. I didn’t find much, but I did like this shot. Beautiful, stunning mountains on that side of those mountains.
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.