Fire ahead
Man I had a tough time last night. I had never been up to Lake Pleasant northwest of Phoenix, but that kind of where this storm was headed, so I thought it would be pretty awesome to capture the sunset glowing over a lake. But I didn’t know the area very well, so by the time the sunset was arriving, I was still trying to find out how to get down to the water. Plus the gas light started coming on intermittently, and with a 1994 4Runner, you aren’t going to have a ton of miles left to find a [...]
The rainy desert
I love black and white photography. Earlier this year I made a promise to myself that I would endeavor to do a lot more B&W this summer during stormchasing. What’s kind of happened is that I’m really enjoying colors. I’ll try it without any color and will usually end up going back. This one, however, I really liked with some harsh black and white processing. Rain falling on the desert, some beautiful textures in the clouds…and a single peak (hard to see) on the left horizon shrouded in light from the sun. It’s hard to beat capturing the stormy skies [...]
Sideways
Last Tuesday I teased about a lightning shot I was going to use for Movie Title Wednesday. Well, after everything that happened that Tuesday night, I never got a chance to post this. Now that the world is back to it’s normal rotation, I finally have the chance. Sideways starred Paul Giamatti, Thomas Hayden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh. Two middle aged dudes take a tour through wine country and stuff happens. Saw the movie once, I don’t remember the plot too well, but of course I remember loving it. Giamatti is one of my favorite actors and he had [...]
Last Gleaming
The last time I was in Sedona, Arizona, was a drive-by I did on my way back from Williams on a work trip. It was the middle of the day, harsh light and not a cloud in the sky. Yuck. Since Saturday afternoon we’ve been enjoying the beautiful red rock country and it’s been refreshing. The temperatures have been downright chilly at times, especially after a good rain. And there has been lots of storms up here. But this place is just beautiful. My struggle is to capture something that no one else does. I make that my main goal [...]
Lightning strike in Sedona
With all the excitement of this past week, I haven’t posted a blog or a photo since Tuesday night. For awhile I was too busy to think about it, then I couldn’t do it if I wanted to because the website had crashed numerous times and finally we had to put it on a different server with a static page. Well, now I’ve moved to a faster, more reliable host and I’m back in the mix of blogging! It’s amazing how much I missed it! I want to write a lot about what happened with the haboob video, the viral-ness [...]
Saguaro Alley
(click to view scaled down to your resolution with a nice black border, or if you have a huge monitor, see it a little bit bigger!) Last week Wednesday marked the first day out stormchasing the 2011 Arizona monsoon. In reality, nothing much happened other than few isolated, brief downpours over Phoenix. I met up with my buddy Chris Frailey who has joined the cause of tossing his gas money down into the gully where I dump mine…and we drove around Bush Highway a bit over by Saguaro Lake and got a few shots, but nothing “stormy” to speak of. [...]
Sunset on the Nevada desert
(Click to see this image with a darker border…brings out the colors a bit better) Back in March I posted a sunset shot from the Nevada desert that had powerlines and I dubbed “Se7en” for Movie Title Wednesday. There were a few other shots I got that night and I just haven’t posted any of them until now. It had been awhile since I’d seen a painted sky like this. Honestly, this wide open desert landscape was great, but I was scrambling to find something more interesting nearby to include in the frame. I realized, however, that this sunset wouldn’t [...]
The Superstitions just before dawn
(click to see an extra larger than normal version to really fill your screen) Back in April we had some good rain on the 9th, so the morning of the 10th I planned to get up waaaaay early and head out to the Superstition Mountains to shoot a beautiful sunrise with gorgeous clouds, cactus and all kinds of juicy stuff. I was also meeting by buddy Ken Peterson out here and we’d hit the Apache Trail together. You can imagine the slight disappointment you get when you are praying for awesome clouds in the morning and this is what you [...]
Dead Rock Canyon
(Click to see full size or to fit your screen resolution) Red Rock Canyon. Dead cactus. Dead Rock Canyon. See what I did there? So clever Mike…so clever. Back in March I explored this area west of Las Vegas and was struck by these dead things. I think they are some kind of cactus, but I have no idea. I tried to Google them, but I couldn’t find anything. Either way, they kind of speckled this wide valley expanse between the red cliffs and the western mountains off in the distance. What’s interesting about going to shoot place that are [...]
The winding road
(clickity click on the image for a biggity big version) I know, a road shot right? This is yet another shot from my trip to Nelson/El Dorado Canyon southeast of Las Vegas back in mid-March. The clouds, the light, the winding road…were almost too much fro me to handle. I saw too many shots I loved and had to reel myself in thinking “Do you really need 25 more road shots Mike??” My real, unabashed answer to that from deep inside me is YES…but in reality, certain road shots are special, most aren’t and you gotta know when it’s worth [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.