When Abby Dawson and her husband Phil decided to convert the back room of their Brooklyn, Michigan property into a ceramics studio, they ran into a minor structural reality: someone had built the room around a hot tub. “We had to chainsaw the hot tub into four pieces,” she says, … | Continue reading
No more homework, or concerts, or waking up early to drive kids to school. It’s summer. Finally. Shot on the Canon 5D (classic!) and Tamron EF 28-75mm f/2.8. | Continue reading
A few leftover shots from my last morning in Manhattan. Shot on the Canon EOS M6 and the Viltrox 23mm f/1.4. | Continue reading
William Eggleston’s work is full of emptiness. While he does make photos of people, most of the work he’s known for is a colorful void. What is it about us as photographers that makes our art-making so devoid of humans? (via Alan Thomas – photo above from Jackson, Michigan’s Gree … | Continue reading
My recent work trip to Manhattan included one perfect, spring sunny day – so I hit the streets to do some New York City street photography. The constant sunlight and plentiful shadows made this a rich environment for my style. Everything south of 34th street and west of Park Ave … | Continue reading
Shot on the Canon 5D mark II and EF 50mm f/1.4. | Continue reading
Our daughter, Riley, took a chance on the running club at school. The culmination of the semester was participating in the local Tunnel to Towers 5k. So we braved a rainy May morning and watched firefighters, first responders, and about 50 elementary students run through Sparks P … | Continue reading
For years, Ari Simeone did not make art because he had learned not to. As a kid growing up on Prince Edward Island in Canada, art was always around Ari. He drew with his father, who he calls “a fantastic artist,” and grew up in a family where creativity was part of everyday life. … | Continue reading
I’m not rich or famous. I don’t have camera companies sending me gear to test. But over the years, I’ve built a reliable camera collection that works for my needs. Each of my cameras – two DSLRs, two M mirrorless bodies – has a place and a purpose. Kind of by accident, it reminds … | Continue reading
Count Times Square in New York City as a place I’ve never been to, until a few weeks ago. I’ve been to New York twice before, but never so close to some of the more iconic destinations: Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, etc. For this work trip, I resolved to fix this and … | Continue reading
Grabbed some tree blossoms at golden hour, before they disappear for the season. Shot on the Canon 6D and Helios 44-2 58mm f/2. | Continue reading
I don’t have a particular dog in this race. Jake Hayden recommends two Canon EF lenses that I own (he’s only missing the EF 85 f/1.8), so I’m already on his side. And I don’t own any RF glass just yet. But the presentation and creativity here, plus the examples, make it a fun wat … | Continue reading
I’ve always heard that Washington Square Park in New York City is the place for street photography. So when I had a work trip planned in Manhattan, I decided to put that statement to the test. It was a beautiful spring day in NYC: the sun shining, a light breeze, and not too warm … | Continue reading
Jackson, Michigan – shot on the Canon EOS M6 and EF-M 28mm f/3.5 marco. | Continue reading
Periodically, I’ll go through my photo archives and remember a particular event, trip, or memory. Think of it like a Lightroom-based rediscovery. One such album dive took me back to the summer of 2012, and one of my most memorable engagement photo sessions with my high school fri … | Continue reading
Made a quick video about my recent urban photography outing in Chicago while on spring break. Have a Canon M camera, will travel – that’s me. | Continue reading
Sidney Wallace will try just about anything once. She’s sketched, painted, made wire jewelry, picked up beading, decorated cakes, attempted a tattoo apprenticeship, and, at one point, filmed her own drawing tutorials for YouTube. That last one didn’t really take off. “That didn’t … | Continue reading
Had the chance to shoot some Artists In Jackson photos at the River Raisin Distillery in Manchester, Michigan, this weekend. It was a great venue with amazing light. Lots more to come. Shot on the Canon EOS M6 and Viltrox EF-M 23mm f/1.4. | Continue reading
This year, I’ve laid out a challenge for myself: Get weird. My photography style revolves around documentary photos. I tend to capture things as they are: people, objects, scenes, abandoned buildings. Sure, I’ll play with the light, shadows, and color grading. But the camera capt … | Continue reading
I often struggle with street photography. For one, I don’t live near a major metropolitan area, so I don’t get a lot of practice. And for two, when I do street photography, I feel like I capture people from too far away. Rarely, I’ll get the right conditions and have a great sess … | Continue reading
Chicago, IL – shot on iPhone 13 mini. | Continue reading
Back to Chicago – this time with the kids on Spring Break. I brought along the Canon EOS M2 and EF-M 22mm f/2. One lens, one perspective, one view of the Windy City. Or lots of views: through windows, outside and inside, on the train, people walking through the streets. Street ph … | Continue reading
But storytelling photography still matters because it’s the closest thing we have to empathy made visible. It’s the one art form that can collapse the distance between “them” and “us.” It turns suffering into understanding, moments into meaning, strangers into witnesses. A storyt … | Continue reading
If you grew up in a chaotic household – either because of dysfunctional or egotistical parents, a troubled family, or any of the many, many ways kids can have it tough – you can usually go one of two ways: either protect yourself and build a life that avoids that chaos, or fall i … | Continue reading
Beautiful sunset on an almost-spring evening. It was that kind of atmosphere that turns everything a different color. Even the kids had to take out their phones and capture the magic: Captured on the Canon EOS M6 and EF-M Viltrox 23mm f/1.4. | Continue reading
Want to know a secret? I’m a wrestling fan. Have been since I was a kid. So when an old friend, who came out of a four-year retirement to wrestle, gave me a heads-up on some indy wrasslin’ for a good cause? Count me in. I took my daughter, who joins me for my annual […] | Continue reading
Early in the pandemic, our youngest daughter, Riley, had to celebrate her birthday outside. Social distancing and flattening the curve – you remember all that. Of course, it rained. But family and friends still came by to wish her a happy birthday. Shot on the Canon 5D (classic!) … | Continue reading
For Valentine’s Day, we were gifted a charcuterie-making class at Sandhill Crane Vineyards. So: date night! We learned how to carve radishes, arrange cheeses, and cut pepper blossoms, all while enjoying live music and plenty of wine. To stay unobtrusive, I brought along my Canon … | Continue reading
February was rough for me. Emotionally, work-wise – everything felt like it was crashing down. My family noticed how irritable I was. I felt it, too: waking up every day tired, wanting to go to bed early every night. I was in a funk. So I got out of the house. It’s amazing what a … | Continue reading
We had the weekend in Chicago – just the two of us, two whole days to make some good trouble. My wife, Jaime, is starting to put herself out there as a business owner. She’s a music therapist, so many of her professional portraits feature a guitar of some sort. With her new enter … | Continue reading
It wasn’t our first time in Chicago during the winter. This time, we were in town for the weekend to see Brandi Carlile and, the next day, wander into downtown Chicago for some new headshots for my wife (more on those later). Wandering the streets around The Loop, I couldn’t help … | Continue reading
You don’t need to be in a war zone for your images to have value. You don’t need to be documenting historical upheaval for your pictures to matter. The revolution happening in your living room, your kid learning to walk, your parent getting older, the slow accumulation of years o … | Continue reading
Grandma Williams died on December 6. Since then, we’ve been picking up the pieces – some figurative, some literal. For instance, we adopted Grandma’s dog, Bruno. We had to take her cable box back and shut off her mobile phone. We found Kodak Carousels with thousands of film slide … | Continue reading
Emotion is the heart of candid photography. Real emotion cannot be forced. It appears naturally when people feel comfortable. Candid photos often show subtle feelings. A relaxed posture, a thoughtful pause, or spontaneous laughter adds depth to the image. These small details help … | Continue reading
Remarkably, all the heavy snow has melted away here in Michigan. Shot on the Canon 5D (classic!) and EF 40mm f/2.8. | Continue reading
Looking through my photo archives recently, I stumbled on photos from a memorable winter trip with my now-wife to South Haven, Michigan. The result of that trip was one of my favorite photos. I know: we Michiganders are wacky. In college, I took a spring break trip north, to Toro … | Continue reading
Consider this a companion piece to my how-to on scanning old photos – here’s how I make my annual photo album for the family, our vacations, and our kids. | Continue reading
For people of a certain age (elder Millennial here), we grew up on the edge of film photography and digital photography. We witnessed the transition unfold firsthand. Our childhoods were captured on film, while our 20s and 30s were mobile and digital. It’s kind of like when our g … | Continue reading
Film, it seems, is all the rage again. It’s the ultimate anti-AI photography platform: analog, messy, imperfect. As digital photography gets better and better, some of us want to slow down and embrace the physical. My own film journey is…nothing noteworthy. I have a few film came … | Continue reading
Jackson, Michigan – shot on the Canon EOS M with the EF-M 22mm f/2. | Continue reading
What if, from time to time, we allow our intuition to lead, both in creating and experiencing art, without immediately asking to justify itself? If we are not afraid to enter unknown, unexplainable spheres in creating and receiving it, and if we hold off trying to understand the … | Continue reading
Art has always been central to Jessica Leeland’s life. “I’ve always done it,” she says. “My brother was an artist. My parents were artists.” Music, theater, and psychology – together with the visual arts – shaped her early creative world, giving her what she calls “the arts in … | Continue reading
Do you ever find yourself in a photography situation where everything clicks? The light is just right, the weather is perfect, and all the conditions snap into place for a great day of photo making? That was me in Lisbon, Portugal, on our trip. After we landed from our tuk tuk to … | Continue reading
A very talkative Frenchman we found at the Hotel do Chiado’s rooftop bar in Lisbon, Portugal. Shot on the Canon EOS M6 and EF-M 32mm f/1.4. | Continue reading
Our Lisbon, Portugal trip came in several stages, so let’s start with the first part: our tuk tuk tour. Our tour guide, João, picked us up near our Sintra guide’s meeting spot: the Hard Rock Cafe, on Avenida Da Liberdade (Liberty Avenue), early in the morning. From there, we took … | Continue reading
This Christmas, we were sitting with some family and going through some of my annual photo books. “I tend to take my camera everywhere,” I told my mother-in-law as she relived the past few years through pictures. Some of those photo albums featured her, either at birthday partie … | Continue reading
Heading out from our home base of Caparica, we took a day to visit Sintra, Portugal, along the Atlantic coast and a short drive from Lisbon. We arranged an Airbnb tour and travelled with a mother/daughter pair from Mexico. As the day started, rain clouds moved in, misting over th … | Continue reading
Have a great new year, everyone. Shot on the Canon PowerShot SD750. | Continue reading