Merry Christmas!
This is my favorite time of year. I usually have a bunch of days off between Christmas and New Years to simply rejuvenate and hang with family. I love it. There is really nothing I look forward to more. Well, other than stormchasing in the Midwest each spring. Or the monsoon season. Or…well nevermind. I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and leave you with some shots from this past Wednesday. We met up with some friends, ate some grub and took a trolley ride to look at some awesome light displays in the East Valley. We finished [...]
A few frames from 2011
Okay…this might be more than a few. But much to the disappointment of my wife, I don’t really have the ability to whittle down the year to only 20-30 photos. I can’t do it. I had too much fun and so many images made the year amazing for me. It was tough enough leaving out the ones I did. So because there are a ton of photos below, I’ll keep it short. This is basically a timeline of the year…as in all images are posted in the order I took them. They are limited to my professional work, meaning they don’t [...]
Equilibrium
(canon 5d mark ii, canon 50mm 1.4, iso 125, f/5.6, 30 sec // buy print) Please click to view on black! One thing I try very, very hard to avoid is posting an image and then saying something like “OMG, this is my bestest, most favoritest photo I’ve ever taken in all the land!” I have many reasons for that, and if you want to know them, you can ask, but it’s just my general rule. Yeah, gonna break that one today. Before that though, it’s Wednesday and I haven’t done a Movie Title image in awhile, so here you [...]
Pearson Christmas Party | Event
There is nothing more fun than a Christmas party with a sweet venue, a bar, great food and fun people. Oh yeah, and blackjack..roulette…craps…pool tables. Awesome. Last week was the big holiday event for the Phoenix branch of Pearson School Systems. I shot last year’s party for them and was honored when they asked me back a second time. They are a fun group of people and I always enjoy hanging out with them for a few hours. I mean, right when I walked in the door, my main contact Michelle dropped four drink coupons in my hand and said [...]
The Beeline Curve
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-200 2.8 is l, 185mm, f/11, iso 100, 30 sec) One of my favorite roads in Arizona is the Beeline Highway. It takes you through some of the most beautiful areas of Arizona. You can see the Superstition mountains, the Four Peaks, Sycamore Creek and all kinds of other things. It allows you to travel from Phoenix to Payson, where the beauty and cool temps of the Mogollon Rim are only 90 minutes from the hot desert. I’ve always loved this curve in the highway, but never figure out [...]
Airplane
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 30mm, iso 100, f/4 // buy print) You may know about my love for reflection photos like this one. What you may not know is that I’m kind of specific about when I shoot them. Like, if someone empties their swimming pool and it floods the street…I don’t rush outside with camera gear in hand. That just doesn’t get me going at all. But what does motivate me are storms. Of course right? And when it comes to reflections…I like the puddles of water leftover after a [...]
Before Sunset
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, iso 100, f/20, 1/5 // buy print) Yesterday afternoon I had a conference call that was scheduled to run to 5:30. I was praying it got over early, because the snow on the Four Peaks was amazing and I knew I had to get out there again for sunset. As luck would have it, the call ended at 4pm and I was bolting for the door. Camera gear, Lyla…her stuff, her DVD player…all of it. We both flew up the Beeline Highway to meet up with [...]
A weekend in Flagstaff
We rarely do last-minute stuff like this, but last Thursday I suggested we drive up to Flagstaff on Friday afternoon and show Lyla the snow. One night quickly turned into the two and became a much needed weekend getaway for all of us. We ate good food, played in the snow and even stumbled across the Flagstaff Christmas parade on Saturday night, which was a ton of fun, especially for Lyla who couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. Being sub-32 out and beanie-less, we all bought snow hats at the only store we could find. Lyla was in love with [...]
Rob and Anna | Wedding
Back in October I helped my good friend and photog extraordinaire Trevor Dayley shoot Rob and Anna’s wedding. I was so blessed to be a part of this event, not only because it was fantastic to hang out with Trevor for a few hours, but also the wedding itself was absolutely beautiful. I always want to tell a story with my wedding posts, but since I was only helping Trevor for this one, I didn’t get to find out too much about Rob and Anna. I do know they constantly get asked how old they are since they both look [...]
The orange moon
Click to view on black, I think it’s got a much better feel to it. I’m not much of an astral photographer…star trails, the Milky Way…the Moon…none of these are my strong suit at all. I just haven’t felt a strong desire to shoot these kinds of subjects. And honestly, the moon has been shot a bazillion times…what else can do you do with it? But despite all of that, I got up early on Saturday morning to check out the lunar eclipse that was going to turn the moon orange. I’ve never seen that before and the next eclipse [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.