One man’s trash…
…you know the rest. Taken after I took in a Suns game with my old man…dropped him off at his car, I stopped in quickly to see if anyone was still up at home, no one was, so I grabbed my gear and went out into the rain-soaked downtown Phoenix area. Not too many wet spots in this scene, although you can see some puddles here and there. This bricked area has a large cover over the entire area, although it’s probably more of a screen than anything else. Shot with the 50mm once again, I knew I wanted to [...]
Moving foward
Today is kind of a huge deal for me. A big deal. The next chapter of my life is unfolding in a few different ways and I’m excited about what it all means. First off…for those that don’t know, I do have a day job that pays the bills while I see about growing this photography business. Everyone has to start somewhere, and me being almost 36 with a wife and kid…doesn’t allow for taking a whole lot of chances financially. I did that when I was younger, so now I’m trying to build a strong foundation before I even [...]
A few of Lyla with the 85mm
I recently got extremely lucky on Craig’s List and found a guy selling a Canon 85mm 1.8 for $225 after he used it one time for only a few shots. Retailing for around $400, I know he could have gotten $300 or so for it, so from the time he posted it to the time I bought it was around three hours. Was praying no one else offered him more money for it! Anyways, I’ve had a few people ask me how the lens turned out and if I’m loving it or not. Definitely a fun lens. Compared to the [...]
Must-have WordPress plugins and other tips for your photoblog
Most of my readers probably aren’t aware of my experience with WordPress and blogging. It’s not to say I am an expert or anything, but I have been involved in blogging one way or another for quite awhile, years before I took up photography. I’ve experienced the ins and outs of blogging, what people like, what I like, what they hate, what bothers me, what works, etc. Now that I’ve been photo blogging, or “phlogging” as I like to call it…erm, that probably doesn’t sound right. Anyways, I’ve been doing the photo WordPress thing for awhile, subscribing to other blogs, [...]
Diagone Alley
This was a popular scene on our photowalk in late December. I had found this alleyway about a year prior to that when I was so hungry to shoot anything that I left home without much direction and ended up in downtown Phoenix. After daring myself to walk down it despite the very late hour, I ended up loving the back of this particular building. It’s a small section of an entire block and it kind of stands out…almost like it’s the entrance to the magical Diagone Alley from Harry Potter. One of my co-horts Adam Schmid really got a [...]
HDR Tennis: Match 7
I participate in a group of awesome photographers that take a set of brackets from one of us and then process it in our own creative way. Then we post the results and get fans on our Facebook page to vote and choose which one they like the best. Fans of the page can also download the brackets and put their spin on it at all. A little friendly competition is good and healthy, and definitely a lot more fun when you WIN! We call it HDR Tennis and the image above was my entry…which turned out to be the [...]
The Shawshank Redemption
I was scouring some of my images last night looking for the right one to post for Movie Title Wednesday. Usually I save my best work for these days (in my eyes of course), but the ones that I really, really loved just couldn’t be connected to a movie for some reason. But then I saw this one, thought “Shawshank” and immediately knew I had today’s photograph. And I actually really like this image. What can I say about The Shawshank Redemption that most of you wouldn’t know already? I mean, it’s in a lot of people’s top 10 favorite [...]
Inside Out
After wandering around the dog track for an hour or so, I ended up coming back to the rows of seats with a new perspective and a new lens on my camera. As I’m prone to do, I started with the 17-35mm because I wanted to capture the vastness and enormity of the place. But later I realized I was missing out on the subtle nuances everywhere you looked. One of them was the weirdness of standing inside a building but still feeling like you were outside. All the giant windows were broken, bushes were growing inside and occasionally a [...]
HDR: A Primer (February 26th, Phoenix Photography Workshop)
I’m so very excited to announce my first ever HDR workshop! I’ve been talking about this for around 4-5 months, I started working on it at the end of last year and finally am ready to go live with an actual date. I know this is going to be a fun experience, educational, hands-on and hopefully will set people down the right path when it comes to learning how to shoot and process high dynamic range images. Before I get into the details of the workshop, you maybe wondering why I even think I’m qualified to teach anyone anything in [...]
Must
There are a lot of “musts” in this photo…all traffic must turn right…you must not park here…you must stop ahead…and of course at the time I thought “I must take this photo.” What is it about me and the weather? I mean, first it was lightning, then it was photographing awesome monsoon clouds across the desert and that was followed closely with wanting to chase storms in the midwest. On this night, it was the thought of rainy, reflective roads that got me out shooting around downtown Phoenix until midnight. If it hadn’t rained, I wouldn’t have been out there, [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.