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Melissa & I went up to stay at her parents house this weekend. We had to meet with a couple up there who ended up being really nice!! We were up near Harrisburg; about a half an hour north in this little town. There is usually this sign going into town carved out of a log that says "Git-R-Done" and I was hoping we could get a picture but someone knocked it down, lol. It'll be up again, it always ends up being put back by someone.

Have you ever had your camera with you and saw something that was pretty awesome and totally didn't even think about taking a picture until after it happens? We were driving on some highway and we were looking to the right in a big open field filled with like 75 birds. Geese I'm guessing. So while looking we saw a dog run towards them from a set of bushes about 50 yards away. Not one bird moved at all and this dog just ran over to them and snatched one in its mouth! Still, no other bird moved while the dog took a few big chomps on the bird an walked away! It was so rediculous!

Coming home today from up there we passed by this 80's pick up truck with a HUGE black bear in the back of it. It was just looking off the side! We assumed it was fake/stuffed/whatever but WHAT? Melissa and I turned to each other and I said, "Where are we?!" Another wish we had our camera ready moment. Good times though!

This picture, taken by Melissa, was going up the mountain Saturday morning...

There was this video I saw from a photographer talking about his work and his life. It's one of those things you experience and it gets you to really think about things. So I thought about how I actually got into this craziness(photography). So here you go...

I really only picked up a camera when I was a junior in high school. I wish it were earlier but the timing was perfect. My high school art teacher, Garrett, spent time with me during our summer art program. And yes, I was one of those kids who, over the summer, spent a few weeks making art! Garrett told us that he was going to give a lesson in photography so bring your camera. So I managed to get ahold of a Pentax K1000 which is still to this day one of my favorite cameras. Once I learned how to use the meter I was off. I was fortunate enough to have a connection for free film and developing. Garrett suggested that I shoot slide film in the beginning because there is little margin for error when metering with slide film. Needless to say he was right. Once I got that down, I moved to color film. During my senior year, once I got a roll developed, I'd simply put it on his desk and leave it there. I'd come back later in the day or the next day. He would put little post-its on the pictures that "worked". We would occasionally talk about certain images afterwards but that is how I learned composition. Its an unorthodox way of learning but thats Garrett. But if you look at his success and accomplishments in his life you realize that unorthodox is the way to go. Also, there was no photography program at the school at that time so we had to do all of this "off the books" (even though that term doesn't really apply, I like it). Once I had gone to college for photography and had become fairly successful, as it would pertain to someone at my level. I had a bunch of shows and had an article written up in a local paper about my work. I also hooked up with The Gabriel Project, through the founder Mark Melamed, non-profit organization is to provide life-saving heart surgery to a children from an area where such surgery is not available. (thegabrielproject.com) I had donated much of my work to them to help raise money.

I was fortunate to see just a couple years later a photography program implemented into our my high school. In no way was it because of me but Garrett and I created this rush of photographers from my time there and my returns in the following summer art programs to help the students in their photography.

Before getting into photography I was lost. I had no ambition to do anything nor was I really interested in anything. There was a void in my life and it the photography that I was waiting to find and it was Garrett who was there to show me. Without getting too mushy or sentimental, I do owe this all to him and to this day, 8 years later, I still keep in touch with him. In fact, I'll be visiting him and his daughter on Sunday because I'll be shooting her wedding!

Tadaaa. The end

P.S. This posts picture is a new technique started using for multiple exposures. I was obsessed with this when I first started shooting and this allows me to take it a step further.

Michael

Last week I had the opportunity to shoot with Melissa alone. Its really hard to get time like that because of the girls but we had a babysitter! Melissa and I always try to take pictures of each other to help us come up with new ideas and techniques(pre & post production). These pictures are a few of what we came up with.


Michael

It's 1:46 AM and I just finished redesigning our website. It took about 2 hrs of planning and over 5 hrs of creating but its done! Melissa and I are very excited. I felt that the old design didn't represent us in the right way. I'm a clean freak and that applies to everything I do so it's more obvious in the new site. I added a new photo to the main page. Its from a wedding almost 3 years ago but its one of my favorites. I posted it below.

Let us know what you think of the new site!!

Michael

It snowed for about 10 hours straight yesterday. We got just over 8 inches which is more than all of last winter. After shoveling for over an hour at 11pm with Melissa, I got the urge to make an HDR image. The picture below is comprised of 9 different exposures that were tonemapped and then further manipulated in photoshop. For anyone who hasn't experienced HDR (high dynamic range) I hope this will get you excited about it! A great website to see HDR images is www.hdrcreme.com if you're interested.

Click on the image (as well as any image in the blog) to view it larger!

Michael

I was speaking to Melissa earlier today about how often we will be posting here and we came up with goal. Either Melissa or myself will be posting at least once a week. We'll also be posting an image each time as well. Even if the picture has nothing to do with the post! For example, the picture below. This picture is of Bella and was taken on January 12th. She's sitting on a new chair/toy she got for Christmas. And don't worry, her sister has her own to sit on! As you can see Bella's hair is doing its own thing, ha. It wasn't up until about a week ago that the girls started letting us put things in there hair. Enjoy!

So its been a while since Melissa and I have had our website up and we are always looking for ways to communicate to people about what we're up to. We use facebook and myspace but it doesn't seem to be enough for me.

Melissa and I will each be posting as much as we can! Below is an image I took of myself(obviously) when we were up at her parents house. The lake was frozen so of course I had to go play on it!