Meet Eli
Just twelve days ago my wife and I asked for help to adopt a baby boy who was due on the 14th of February. Those that follow us on Facebook and Twitter already know this, but the baby came early. Little Eli Charles was born on the 5th and today marks his week anniversary being a part of our family. It’s also, ironically, the day he was due! It’s unbelievable how fast all of this happened and how much our lives have changed in last seven days. The first night was pretty rough. Not much sleep. The realization sinking in [...]
Thank you
Thank you. Never have those two words been so unable to express how my wife and I feel this morning. It all started with a simple plea for help. And then we saw something happen that we did not expect. By the middle of the afternoon, we had already raised 50% of our goal of $9000. We never thought we’d get halfway in the first day. But then people got home from work. And logged onto Facebook. And suddenly we were watching this miracle happen. It could only have been God’s doing. What was amazing was all the people who were pulling [...]
We need your help
Friends and family (and those of you we haven’t met yet)… This is it. In just two short weeks, give or take, we should be adopting a baby. Before we get into the details, here is a brief overview of our story, mainly for those that don’t really know it. Jina and I have been married almost 14 years. After trying for many years to get pregnant with no success, we realized we were going to need to talk to the professionals. At our doctor’s prompting, we decided to try six months of artificial insemination… still no success. We started to [...]
A few frames from Joshua Tree
Just over a week ago I drove out to Joshua Tree National Park with Rick Young and Chris Frailey. We met up with Heath O’Fee (down from Canada), Chris DeAngelis (California) and Doug Wise (also California). The plan was to hang out in the park for a sweet sunset, shoot some stars, shoot the sunrise and then mosey on over to the Salton Sea for another sunset. The plan was great except for absolutely zero clouds anywhere that first evening. Photographers hate that. So when the sky is boring, I usually turn my camera on my buddies and start shooting [...]
Behind all the cute
I love to photograph my daughter, even though I’ve been doing less of it lately. I need to get back into that habit though, because usually I can find something worth treasuring forever. Like this shot. Lyla is a cutie pie for sure. Whenever I post pictures of her on Facebook or the blog, I almost always hear about how adorable she is. In fact, my good friend Jesse has told me his wife demands that he tell her anytime I post a new photo of Lyla. Wonder if she still will? (heh) So today I thought I’d show the [...]
Looking ahead
. Last year on January 3rd, I wrote a blog post that talked about some things I was excited about for 2011. Appears as though that might end up being an annual tradition around these parts. I shot this little self-portrait of me and Lyla back on September 15th, the last day we went stormchasing in 2011 (if you bought my book, you’ve seen this already). At the time, I believe I was actually standing there thinking about what an amazing summer it had been and how sad I was to see it end. But then the fall was also [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Our photos by Session Nine
I heard once that the best thing a photographer can do is to get in front of the camera themselves and see what it’s like. Let’s face it, a lot of us enjoying hanging in the background, taking pictures of people, buildings, mountains…whatever you like, but we never really try hard to let someone take a photo of US. And for those of us who are portrait and wedding photographers…we really should understand what it’s like to be our clients in front of our lenses. Towards the end of this past summer I decided I wanted to get some photos [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.