Early this year Jesse Pafundi and I talked about having him come out from New York and shoot a wedding with me. So that plan happened. And then I needed someone for a photobooth and I asked my Canadian buddy Heath O’Fee who rocks photobooths up in Calgary if he could come. He couldn’t, so I invited my good friend Brian Furbush (also from New York) instead. And then Heath’s amazing wife surprised him with a plane ticket and suddenly something epic was happening. And then Chris DeAngelis decided he wanted to see a concert here and join us for…

This past weekend four amazing photographer buddies of mine flew into town. Three of them helped me shoot a wedding on Saturday and then all five of us left at 5:30am Sunday to head north. We hit Page, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Sedona and back home Monday at noon. Almost 700 miles. And barely any sleep. We woke up at 3am on Monday just to shoot the Milky Way over Sedona. And then sunrise. And then we took this photo basically closing out the trip. A Toyota Sienna. A mini-van. Five dudes IN a mini-van. How embarrassing right? Maybe so…but…

Wow. Eli is already a year old. It’s absolutely incredible how time flies. Yesterday was his birthday…but today was the anniversary of when we first met him. Only about 36 hours old. Such a tiny little bundle of wrinkles. And those cheeks. Which he’s kept this entire time! People love his cheeks! Putting this blog post together was kind of awesome. Being able to see the entire year in pictures was joy. And it also made me realize how thankful I am. To God for blessing us with Eli. The off-chance that a friend of a friend knew some people…

Tomorrow I will be posting my recap of images from 2012 and this one is part of that collection. But I felt like it deserved its own post prior to that one, just because of how special it is to me. This is my daughter during a storm chase early last summer. We had stumbled across a wide open, cracked earth field near Eloy. The sky was amazing. The sun was casting sick rays from behind them. And Lyla, being the independent girl that she is, started wandering off towards the sunset, always looking back at me to see when…

Just over a week ago we went on a road trip to California with our friends Matt, Daireth and Tatum. Our daughter Lyla has pretty much been best friends with Tatum since they were born as they are only five weeks apart. Lyla turned four in late November, Tatum’s birthday is later this month, so us parents decided their birthday present this year was a trip to Disneyland. For Lyla that’s the first time. Tatum went when she was teeny tiny, so she doesn’t remember much about it. Jina started a “hashtag” for the trip called “Road Trip to Cali”, which…

On Friday evening I gave a 5-minute talk on chasing storms in front of 850ish people at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. It was all part of Ignite Phoenix, a very cool event and something I’m super proud to have been involved with. But it took a lot of encouragement, praying and rehearsing to get it done. I don’t like public speaking at all…it’s always been my biggest fear and my Achille’s Heal. But in the last year or two, with all this storm chasing stuff, the haboob video…I’ve suddenly been doing a lot more things like this. I…

A few weeks ago we took a quick trip over to San Diego for two nights, visited two beaches and also the Scripps Aquarium. We rarely take little vacations these days, so it was a nice break for us to hang as a family without thinking much about stuff at home. It was also awesome to watch Eli experience the ocean for the first time, and also for Lyla to be a bit older on her latest visit. She was afraid of going too far, of the big waves, but I watched her in amazement the entire time. She would…

On our trip to Grand Falls back in August, we had a lot of waiting to do before the flash flood showed up. And it got dark. So as photographers of course, we can’t just stand around and enjoy ourselves, we have to take pictures of ANYTHING. The stars came out and I rarely get to photograph the Milky Way, so I started taking long exposures. They were okay, but then I saw the little hut my daughter was sitting in, the head lamp she had thanks to our buddy Dee, and so I backed up a bit and included…

Lyla says peekaboo and welcomes you to the brand-spanking new branding/website I’ve been working on for a few months now. I’m beyond excited. The feedback I’ve gotten from my close friends who have gotten first looks at it have been amazing. Everyone had the same thing to say: It’s so you Mike. Which is exactly what you hope to accomplish on a massive rebranding/new website undertaking. I have to thank Jon Ashcroft for his stellar work in designing the logo. He’s uber awesome and highly professional at what he does. We had a first meeting where he just had me talk…

There is one thing I like to do to keep the kid inside me alive. Okay, well there’s probably more than one thing, but whatever! Yes, I still like to buy Lego sets every now and then. It’s fun to take a break from everything else and simply build something awesome. Now that I’m older though, I have certain self-imposed rules I follow. I only buy the Technic sets because they are more intense, and I only get the Star Wars sets from the original trilogy. Yes, I have standards when it comes to building Legos…what a nerd right? I’ve…