Green Bay Wisconsin Commercial and Editorial Photographer

Photography From Above • Wisconsin Higher Education Photographer

Thursday, June 11, 2015

I’ve shot photos for St Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin for a numbers of years. The college along the banks of the Fox River is very scenic and as a photographer you’re never without a great location for photos. Over the years I’ve shot just about every angle except from above. Earlier this month we decided to get access to a few roofs and see what we could create. We also incorporated a motorized tripod head that we could put 20 feet into the air and compose though a live view to our iPad. The motorized tripod head, the CamRanger MP-360, is an item we just added to our kit and already can see a lot of uses for it. We can control everything from exposure to focus for a real time view that’s being sent back to our iPhone, iPad or computer. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day shooting from above, and one ground level shot I couldn’t pass up.

Thanks for looking!

Mike

Hospital Billboard Campaign • Wisconsin Healthcare Photographer

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Here are a series of billboards I recently completed for Agnesian Healthcare. The marketing team for the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin based healthcare system came up with some great subjects and locations. Designer Matt Bellisle of Gravity DSN always does a great job creating the pieces. We had a few minor hurdles to overcome like swarms of bay flies, trying to make ankle deep water look like waist deep and making a basement den look like a night club, but in the end I think the pieces look great.

Thanks for looking!

Mike

Photos From The 2015 Cellcom Green Bay Marathon • Wisconsin Sports Photographer

Friday, May 22, 2015

Here are some of my favorite photos from covering the 2015 Cellcom Green Bay Marathon weekend in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The weekend is full of great races including a 5K, a kids run, a half marathon and a full marathon. All of the races run through Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers NFL football team. I’ve covered the races for their title sponsor, Cellcom, and the marathon all, but one your since it started 16 years ago. The photos get used in various ways from advertising to social media. It’s always a joy to photography and a nice break from the commercial photography and editorial photography I do.

Thanks for looking!

Mike

An Emotional Senior Day For Green Bay Women’s Basketball • Green Bay Sports Photographer.

Monday, March 9, 2015

As a photographer you’re always trying to tell a story through photos. Last Saturday my job was to tell the story of the Green Bay women’s basketball senior day for one of my higher education photography clients. I’ve covered a number of these events as a sport photographer for the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and they never disappoint in delivering emotional moments. The men’s teams are a little more reserved and their emotional expressions more condensed; the women’s tend to include more tears and last a little longer.

On Saturday, Green Bay said good bye to their two seniors, Ellen Edison and Megan Lukan. Ellen went first with her long list of people that she wanted to thank for her success. Then came Megan who is from Barrie, Ontario Canada, who has a younger sister, Kaili Lukan, on the team. Megan knew she could never get through her list without choking up so she recorded it and it played on the big video monitor above the court. Megan shed a few tears as she watched herself on the monitor and it made for story telling pictures, but when she got around to thanking her family, that’s when things really got emotional. When she talked about her sister, they met in front of the players bench and hugged. When she talked about her dad, she made her way in to the stand and sat in his lap. That was a very touching and emotional moment. Even with her adult 5’7 frame sitting in her dad’s lap, you could see her as a young girl honoring that special connection with her dad. Her dad’s expression tied everything together to make it a very memorable moment.

Later that day I posted the photo of father and daughter to my social media accounts and I got a lot of positive feedback, but the comment that meant the most to me was by Megan. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words…I think this sums up how emotional I was today. Thank you everyone for all your support today and over my career here at Green Bay”. Megan asked if she could get a print of that frame; that’s definitely a request I will follow through with so they can remember the moment.

The Green Bay women’s team isn’t done for the year. The Phoenix will be hosting the Horizon League Women’s Basketball Championship. Hopefully I’ll be covering them in the championship game next Sunday.

Thanks for looking!

Mike

Megan Lukan goes in to the stands to hug her dad John during senior day for the Phoenix.

Megan Lukan hugs her younger sister Kaili.

Wisconsin Stock Photography • Photos of the Apostle Islands Ice Caves 2015

Thursday, March 5, 2015

This past Monday Milwaukee based photographer Tom Lynn and I trekked to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to photography the ice caves. I’ve been to the caves a number of times both in the summer and winter, but this was the first time I visited them with photography as my main mission. It was interesting to visit the sea caves with another photographer and see how they go about documenting the caves. Tom and I have covered many sporting event together over the years, but in a situation like that you don’t have as much freedom to work your photographic vision as we did on this day.

Tom wanted to have as few people in his photos as possible. I was looking for people in mine for two reasons. The main reason being that I think having a subject in the shots helps show how big some of these caves are, but also to show the adventure of visiting the caves.

A little background on the sea caves. The Apostle Islands are a group of 22 islands in Lake Superior, off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The islands and sea caves are part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The best caves in the Apostle islands are on the mainland and west of Bayfield near Cornucopia. The safest way to access the caves is to park at the end of Meyers Beach road, 18 miles west of Bayfield. The parking lot is run by the parks department and has stairs down to the beach. From Meyers Beach it’s about a mile to the start of the caves and the best caves stretch for a couple of miles. In the summer I suggest going out with one of the many outfitters in the area, if your not an experienced kayaker. Access to the caves is best on a calm day and to me they are most spectacular when the light hits them towards the end of the day. In the winter access is controlled by the parks department. The weather conditions need to be just right for the ice to form around the caves allowing for safe access. Some years the caves can be open for a few day or a few weeks, but some years they never open. Be prepared for the walk out. The surface can be anything from slick ice requiring some type of ice cleats to possibly snow shoes. To find out if the caves are open visit the parks department web site or their Facebook page.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the ice caves.

Mike