Hole in the sky
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35 2.8, 17mm, f/16, iso 100, 1/80 // buy print) I’ll always remember this day as one of my favorites of the 2011 monsoon season. I had gotten away by myself, alone on the road, not a soul with me, no one tagging along…just me going where I thought the storms would be. It felt liberating for some reason. It also turned out to be the second day in a row where I found myself on a tornado-warned storm. The structures from the midwest weren’t there necessarily, but [...]
Sunset on the Salton Sea
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f/4 l, 17mm, iso 100, f/16, 1/4 sec // buy print) The sunset the night before in Joshua Tree was without a single cloud anywhere. It was like that video Sh*t Photographers say. All we did was whine about no clouds. Perhaps I whined the loudest, I don’t remember. I’m sure my five compadres would verify it for you. But it was like the lack of clouds that night was completely justified because of what we saw the very next evening. We couldn’t have asked for anything [...]
Prickly Pear
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35 2.8, 17mm, f/20, iso 100, 0.5 sec // buy print) Back in mid-December we had some great cold fronts move through the state leaving snow on the mountains surrounding Phoenix. I must have been out in the Four Peaks and Superstition Mountains area every other night for a week. Trying to capture a sunset…trying to get the snow on the hills. This was probably one of the more gorgeous sunsets of 2011 that my camera saw. You can see the snowy Four Peaks off on the right [...]
Hillside
(please click to view on black and fit your screen // canon 5d mark ii, canon 85mm 1.8, f/7.1, iso 200, 8 sec // buy print) We had some winter storms blown through the state last night, and there was even lightning strikes south of Phoenix in Casa Grande. Needless to say, it got me impatient for the monsoon season to arrive this summer. So I dug up this shot from last July. For those that have a copy of my stormchasing book, you’ve likely already seen it! It was one of my first experiences shooting lightning down in Tucson and [...]
Horizon
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-200 2.8 l, 200mm, f/10, iso 100, 1 sec // buy print) Back in December, we had quite a few winter storms blow through the state which left snow on the outlying desert peaks. On the evening I took this photo, I had met up with a bunch of photographer buddies, like Bryan Snider, Jon Stolarski, Chris Frailey and the awesome duo from Surefire Photos, Sean and Michelle Freeney. We all were hoping for a gorgeous Four Peaks sunset. But the clouds were too low and never broke. [...]
The cotton fields
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, iso 100, f/16, 1/125 // buy print) If you ordered a copy of my Stormchasing Arizona book, or happened to see my Best of 2011, you may have seen this image already. But it was one of my top five probably from last year’s monsoon season, so I felt like it was owed it’s own blog post. Right? Am I the only one that believes his images have feelings and would feel shunned if they didn’t get their own blog time? I mean, yes, this [...]
The Calm
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f4 l, b+w ND 10-stop, 19mm, f/22, iso 100, 124sec // buy print) I’m dedicating this photo to my buddy Chris DeAngelis, who let me borrow his 10-stop B+W filter and made all of this possible. He loaned it to me a few times at Bombay Beach, while Rick Young loaned me his over on the west side of the Salton Sea. Thank you guys. Yes, I’m getting my own. Soon. Normally if you are by water and pull out a 10-stop, you are hoping to pull [...]
The Edge of the World
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f/4 l, 17mm, iso 100, f/16, 0.6 sec // buy print) This past Friday and Saturday I was part of a whirlwind trip that took me through Joshua Tree National Park and ended at the shores of the mysterious and disturbing Salton Sea. My good friend Heath O’Free was visiting Palm Springs from Canada, and had invited me to meet up with him on Friday. Also along for the journey was some other buddies…Rick Young and Chris Frailey from Phoenix, and Chris DeAngelis and Doug Wise from California. [...]
A sunset on the Superstitions
. (please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f/4 l, 17mm, f/16, iso 100, 1/4 sec // buy print) The weather predictions for winter out here in Arizona called for a La Nina pattern…meaning not much rain and not very cold temperatures. So it was kind of a surprise when December rolled in with quite a few cold fronts that dropped snow on the mountains outside of Phoenix and also an inch of rain in town. Now, of course, we’re well into our predicted La Nina winter, with temps hovering around 75-80 and no [...]
Moon
. (click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, f/5.0, iso 4000, 20 sec // buy print) It’s Movie Title Wednesday, a series that has been going on so long that I’m surprised I haven’t run out of films to use yet. Moon is one of those hidden gems that you may not have heard of before. It came out several years ago and stars Sam Rockwell as a guy who is on a 3-year stint managing a mining operation on the Moon that helps replenish Earth’s resources. If you love pure, classic science [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.