Like most photographers, I would like say that I fell in love with photography as a young kid "when my father gave me my first camera." Unfortunately, that's not true. Yes, when I was a young kid I did play around with my parent's Polaroid cameras but I didn't really care about taking pictures. Taking pictures didn't seem creative to me at the time- I would much rather draw pictures. Taking pictures with a camera was something your parents did when you were on vacation.

Fast forward to college… freshman year. That's when I realized that I couldn't draw worth a damn but I did have an eye for a well-taken picture. Maybe it was seeing my first Ansel Adams poster or hanging out with my artsy friends flipping through artsy magazines staring at all the artsy photographs. I think that's what sparked my long dormant desire to pick up a camera and say to myself "why can't I do that?"

Well, that was 26 years ago. I read books, took some classes, built dark rooms and practiced. That's when my photographic hobby (read: money-sucking black hole) eventually became a little side business. You mean people will actually pay you to do what you already love to do? Nice.

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Michael lives in Bakersfield, California and works full time in the food industry. Fortunately, he still has enough time to be a photographer and graphic designer. Michael is married to a beautiful woman and they have a beautiful boy. He likes to golf, play tennis and drink fine Bourbon.