Se7en
(Click to view in lightbox, the choice of a new generation) If you haven’t seen the movie Se7en, then you probably wont get how it connects with the image above. You probably wont get the horrific moment it represents in the film either. And I don’t want to give anything away for people who still want to watch it, so I’ll do my best to just skip those details. Needless to say, when I was processing this photo…it was suddenly obvious that it was going to be used for Movie Title Wednesday. I think I even may have had an [...]
Skylights
Sunsets are sometimes a challenge. First off, it helps if you kind of have an instinct about when you think it’s going to be a good one. But when you do think you’ve got one of those amazing Arizona evening skies headed your way, the next bit of fun is trying to decide just where you’re going to setup. Obviously you can plan ahead and select a few locations you may have found in the past, but I enjoy just heading out and finding something on the fly. The problem is…when you get that epic sunset…you really only have one [...]
Window to the End of the World
This is the first of many, many images from the abandoned dog track north of Phoenix near Black Canyon City. I made the trek up there with my good AZ photog buddies Rick Young and Scott Wood. The place hasn’t been used as a dog track since 1982 and after that it was a swap meet until closed a few years later. Now it sits there waiting for explorers to venture inside in search of hidden treasures…which for us are photographs. There was talk that we’d go in the morning, but I pushed for the late afternoon hours, having told [...]
Warp Speed
A few nights ago I declared I was tired of urbex for awhile and wanted to get out and shoot some desert landscapes against the setting sun. I hadn’t been to South Mountain in awhile and didn’t remember much of it, so I dragged along my wife and daughter and we drove up to the top of Summit Road where you can see the entire city. It’s breathtaking. But for me, I didn’t want to just sit there with the hundreds of other people and take a picture that everyone else was taking. So we didn’t even stop at the [...]
The Departed
Yes, it’s Movie Title Wednesday once again, where I choose a movie title to go with one of my photographs. Although, in reality, it now goes something like this on Tuesday nights: “Hey, Jina, come look at this.” “What?” “I need you to pick a movie title for this week’s image, I obviously suck at life when I do it. Far and Away? REALLY? Ugh…” So now I run it by the lady in charge…because she is wise, keen and knows much more than me. She’s always been that way in many different areas, but now it spreads over to [...]
A pair of rails at sunset
(Rebel XSi, Tamron 17-35mm, 17mm, ISO100, F16, six exposures) As I’ve talked about in a few recent posts, I’ve been exploring downtown Phoenix more in the past week. On two separate occasions I’ve been able to drive around just before the sun went down and just see what I see. And you know me…I don’t tend to go out shooting unless there is hope for something good in the sky…cool clouds, a sunset, whatever. Blue skies depress me. This was a fun night with a fairly decent sunset, although it was pretty far off on the horizon. Still, a couple [...]
Sunset over downtown Phoenix
(Rebel XSi, Tamron 17-35mm, 17mm, ISO100, F16, six exposure HDR) Phoenix sucks in the way that the freeway system tries its absolute very best to avoid the downtown area. I love how the bigger cities out there like Boston have freeways and large highway systems that gut the downtown area. In Phoenix, you have to try very, very hard to get any kind of shot with a freeway + tall buildings. I had been eying this parking garage ever since I moved downtown and had been wanting for a nice sunset to go with it. It’s not the best spot [...]
The Sandlot
The Sandlot…I know the only way you connect that film with this photo is obviously the playground area boxed in by sand, but when I was trying to think of something for Movie Title Wednesday, this one clicked into place. May as well use it now, I think this may be the first time I’ve ever shot anything sunset/landscape related from a children’s playground. There was a reason for that of course, I’ll tell you in a bit. But first…The Sandlot…once of those cult classic movies for me that will never get boring, never get old and never fail to [...]
Glowing Rails
(Canon Rebel XSI, Tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, ISO 100, 8-exposures, F8) Back three weeks ago when I realized it was going to be a nice sunset, I’d drive 5 minutes and be in the middle of the desert. Now I’m scrambling for places in downtown Phoenix that will compliment the gorgeous skies we get down here in the evenings and mornings. My little family and I had been driving around downtown two weekends ago just exploring and seeing what kind of restaurants are there, shops, etc. Of course I was unconsciously more focused on things I could photograph, but when [...]
One Man’s Trash…
…is another man’s treasure. I’ve been holding onto this one for awhile…shot it back in August along with a few other sunsets I’ve posted since then. This was one of my favorite photos from the day and sometimes you just want to HOLD onto a photo and just wait for the right time to post it. I have no idea why this was the time, or exactly why I waited…but regardless, here it is. This was just south of the I-10/SR 587 interchange…a road I had never been down before. I drove right on past this to grab the sunset, [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.