The Multi-Color Light Pillars of downtown Phoenix
If you can imagine…I was walking past this and completely missed it. In fact, if it wasn’t for another photographer with a tripod setup, I might have just strode on by without ever knowing what could have been. In the picture above, against the sky on the right side of the shot, you can see a very large net-like structure against the sky. That was my target. I had come down to Phoenix looking to get a shot of that lit up. But as it usually works out for me, the thing I intended to photograph becomes nothing compared to [...]
Hotel San Carlos in downtown Phoenix
The Hotel San Carlos originally opened in 1928 and was the most modern hotel in the entire southwestern United States at the time. First hotel in Arizona with air conditioning and hand-powered high-rise elevators. It cost $850,000 to build…which doesn’t seem to be that much until you compare it to the $820 price tag of a Model “A” Ford at the same time! You can read more of the history of this hotel by visiting their website. This was just another stop on my little photowalk of downtown Phoenix Saturday night. I took a bunch of long, bracketed exposures ranging [...]
An Easter rose
Easter was a big day for my little family this year. We’ve made a big decision to help a church get started in the downtown Phoenix area, and not only that, but we’re up and moving there to be closer to the urban area and to my full-time job. The first meeting of Day 12 was down at the Phoenix Theater, which abuts the Phoenix Art Museum. It’s a beautiful area, and in-between both places is a courtyard with art, sculptures, towering juniper and rose bushes. I was photographing the event and couldn’t help but notice some of the other [...]
Photos from the April 2nd ‘First Fridays’ in Phoenix
Last night we spent the evening with some friends that live in the Willo District in downtown Phoenix. Afterwards, our little group of people walked to the monthly art festival called First Fridays. We had no idea what it was like, nor how insanely crowded it would be. Was such a fun event to attend, although a little hectic. I love candid photography, which is kind of how I style the portraiture I am able to do from time to time. This was a haven of photo-ops and I took advantage. The photos below are of the festival itself and [...]
The Spring Wildflowers of the Arizona Desert
A good friend of ours named Ryann had been traveling along the US 60 through Superior in the last week and made sure to point out to me all the wildflowers blooming along the highways and mountains. Plus I’d been keeping up with DesertUSA.com and all their reader wildflower reports. They mentioned how the flowers had been going nuts on Silver King Mine road just west of Superior, so I packed the wife and kid in the car Sunday afternoon and we took off. The first thing we noticed was the highway. From when you leave the Apache Junction area [...]
Something different: Urban photography with Brian
Brian is starting a church down in central Phoenix, a place where God has led him and his family to reach the urban crowd. Downtown Phoenix isn’t like your normal big city downtown, at least those like San Francisco, New York, Boston, etc. It’s more spread out, there are wider spaces, houses and random sprawl. But it still has a central corridor and some high rise buildings. Brian wanted some photos of himself down there to use on his blog, or in other things that may come up. The goal was to capture not only photos of him, but also [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.