About ten years ago, photography came my way almost by accident. My wife and I had recently returned from our honeymoon, and I was showing co-workers at the San Bernardino County Medical Center (now Arrowhead Regional Medical Center) snapshots from our trip. Dr. Dorian Snyder, who is an accomplished and published photographer when he’s not saving lives, was looking over our shoulder and kept commenting on images that I had taken. He subsequently encouraged me for months to pick up a camera and take a more serious approach at shooting photos. After a few “basic photography” primers, usually in between patient care (I am also an R.N.), I ventured out with an old Canon AE1 that my wife’s Uncle Jim had given her many years ago. It didn’t take long for me to be captivated. After only a couple of years and more tutoring from the good Dr. Snyder, I actually won my first award at the Los Angeles County Fair Millard Sheets Photography Exhibition. We subsequently won showings and place finishes over the next several years, and my work was chosen to appear in the San Bernardino County Art Association’s 2000-Millenium Calendar.

For several years I dreamed of being the next Ansel Adams, with some small successes along the way, when our Fine Art clients started “bugging” me to do family portraits, weddings, etc. Initially, I would explain that portrait photography was as different from landscape photography as being a plumber is different from being an electrician. Finally, Noelle Sims (now Tiegs) talked me into photographing her family. Although I was clueless as to how to create a portrait photo, she insisted that I try. That image is in the portrait section of our new site, the one with Noelle, her daughter Paige, and their dog Max. Subsequently, she was our first wedding client also. That work turned into more portrait and wedding work from other clients, and soon we were portrait photographers! In a twist of fate that I never imagined (and resisted for some time), wedding and portrait photography has become the heart of our business. Today, we are doing several portrait and wedding sessions in any given month, and we are getting busier all the time. I would like to thank Dorian and Noelle for seeing something in our work, and encouraging us to move forward with the business, and everyone along the way that has trusted us to capture their special moments. Our goal is to create imaginative images by communicating with our clients and to reflect their spirit in all of our work.

Mike, Bev and Selah

Equipment;
For those of you who care, we use top of the line Pro Nikon and Fuji digital cameras and lenses, including the awesome Nikon D2X and Fuji S3 Pro cameras. We also occasionally dust off our Pentax 645n medium format film camera for certain applications, especially for our commercial clients, and our fine art work . Photoshop CS2 is our primary photo application, but we utilize a variety of software in our digital workflow. We are also a Pictage Partner, and we utilize their lab for most of our portrait and wedding print applications. You can visit www.pictage.com to see more of our work.