It's Tamron Tuesday  and time for another profile of a  Tamron Image Master.  

Meet Mike Moats, who's in the spotlight today. Mike is an award winning, professional nature photographer from Sterling Heights, Michigan.   As with all of Tamron's Image Masters, going through his galleries and picking out images to share with you in a spotlight post wasn't easy.  Every image is stunning. Visit his site and see for yourself.  

On Tamron's Image Masters page Mike wrote...

"I started shooting as a hobby in 2001 and it quickly grew into a full time business. To date I’ve had articles and images published in, Outdoor Photographer Magazine, Natures Best Magazine, Nature Photographer Magazine, Photolife, Whisper In The Woods, Michigan Game Finder, NANPA’s Expressions Books, Pure Michigan Book, and Fujifilms Newsletter (Cable Release). I have won numerous local and international awards, and in 2006 was asked to join the Fuji Pro Talent Team. In 2006 I started offering Close-Up/Macro Photography Workshops. My first book was released in October 2008 called Tiny Landscapes. This is a how-to book for macro photography in nature. In 2009 I began offering online macro workshops and just released two new eBooks, "Macro Workshop eBook" and "Running A Successful Nature Photography Business".


You should put Mike on your radar and check out his macro workshops.  Information is on his website and definitely pay attention to his blog.  Mike's got an extensive workshop schedule, well worth your time to look into and study with one of the best!

Mike's Tamron Gear Box

18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD (model B008)
SP 60mm F/2.0 Di II Macro (model G005)
SP 90mm F/2.8 Di VC Macro (model F004)

Images copyright Mike Moats. All rights reserved.

In early January I published a post called "Why I Love This Blog".   That post started an idea for a new weekly feature called "How I Got Started."  I'm just going to keep sharing them until I run out, but here's what I'm looking for:

Stories about how you got started.  Who's been your inspiration? What made you fall in love with photography? This is real simple and meant to be fun, not feel like a homework assignment from when you were a kid. It's 200-400 words, (I'm happy to edit it for you) a head shot of you, a link to your website and 1-2 images you're most proud of. Images only need to be 5x7 equivalent at 72 dpi...and obviously YOURS!  Send it all to my email, [email protected]. 

I want to thank Pete Wilson for today's post. He's a UK photographer, but there's a special twist on his story. Nikkie Tatton, his fiancé, sent in the first "how I got started" story. They're in business together and about to be lifetime partners, not just business associates.  Pete and Nikkie are First Light Photography if you'd like to find out more about them and their business.

I'm not sure if it's the stories I like the most or the fact that it's going to be fun following Pete and Nikkie's careers as wedding photographers.

Okay, so who's next to share how they got started.

Profoto's "Walk Through a Wedding" series might have ended in December, but the content they shared, featuring Justin and Mary Marantz is an amazing body of work. The last episode of Walk Through a Wedding  was all about the sparkler exit.  Justin and Mary take you through their technique in the short video below.

I've loved every video produced in the series, but the comment so often has been that they're not real world. They don't reflect all the challenges happening during a real event. Of course they don't. They weren't supposed to. These are all good solid technical "how-to" pieces, but that's why I started "Walking the Talk".

The images below the video are all from real weddings...nothing scripted - just Justin and Mary doing what they do best...showing how they can walk the talk! 

A big thanks to Profoto USA for their non-stop support of education and incredible lighting equipment, especially the new B1, the off-camera flash so many people have referred to as a "game-changer"!

Images copyright Justin and Mary Marantz. All rights reserved.

It's a new year and time for a new Tamron Tuesday profile of another  Tamron Image Master.  

David Akoubian is in the spotlight today. David is no stranger to SCU and shared a guest post with stunning images in July of 2013, with some great how-to help when it comes to dragging the shutter. Then he joined me on a podcast. What I personally enjoy most about David's work is his focus (pun intended) on the extremes, looking at the landscape in ways we don't see and then zeroing in on the macro world, showing even more of what we miss.

It was no easy task visiting his galleries and picking out my favorite images, because there's pretty much nothing David can't photograph. Take a look for yourself and you'll see what I mean. This is about passion for every subject and every pixel!

On Tamron's Image Masters page David is described as...

David has been photographing for about 40 years and working as a nature photographer since 1993.  He specializes in the grand and micro landscape.  Having learned his craft from some of the legends of the nature field, his work is the combination of “old school” technical and draws the compositional aspect from his days training as an illustrator.  David has been an instructor for 20 years as well, sharing his love and knowledge of photography and nature with students and camera clubs.  David’s work has been featured in galleries, calendars, magazines and textbooks.  His client list includes but is not limited to:  Blue Ridge Country magazine, Nature Photographer Magazine, Birder’s World, PNC Bank, Scholastic Books, The Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia, Vanguard Photo, and Tamron.  His work has been used in advertorial pieces as well in Outdoor Photographer, Audubon Magazine, Shutterbug Magazine as well as other popular photography magazines.  David lectures and leads photography workshops and tours across the US.

David needs to be on your radar. Check out his website, follow him on Facebook and definitely pay attention to his blog.

David's Tamron Gear Box 

18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III for Sony NEX (model B011)
18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD (model B008)
SP 10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II (model B001)
SP 17-50mm F/2.8 Di II VC (model B005)
SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC (model A007)
SP 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di (model A005)
SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC (model A009)
SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC (model A011)
SP 200-500mm F/5-6.3 Di (model A08)
SP 60mm F/2.0 Di II (model G005)
SP 90mm F/2.8 Di VC (model F004)
SP 180mm F/3.5 Di (model B01)        

Intro by Skip Cohen

Just into the new year I published a post called, "Why I Love This Blog".  The post was the short version of how this blog became a reality and a couple of the challenges along the way. Every photographer remembers the key points in how they got started, what drew them to photography and who were the people involved who helped them focus, not with their camera, but with their heart.

So, this is going to be a new feature and we'll run a story a week until I run out. I'm looking for stories about how you got started. What was your first camera? Who's been your inspiration? Who planted that first seed about photography? It's 200-400 words, a head shot of you, a link to your website and 1-2 images you're most proud of. Images only need to be 5x7 equivalent at 72 dpi...and obviously YOURS!  Send it all to my email, [email protected]. 

A big thanks to UK photographer, Nikkie Tatton of First Light Wedding Photography, who was literally the first person to respond! What a kick to read her story...and for those of you who will be critical of her starting point and have forgotten what it was like when you first started, Nikkie has only been out shooting for a little over a year...she's definitely a newbie, but I couldn't be more proud to share her story, because she's passionate about what she's doing. She's focused on the effort it takes to never stop learning and paying attention to what her clients want and building relationships.

The fun of a newbie's story like this will be following her growth with the hope that her passion keeps evolving in her skill set and future success.

I’m Nikkie Tatton and I’ve been a wedding photographer for 15 months, going from zero knowledge of photography to co-running a successful business in that time. I’m the kind of photographer who takes a lot of stick from our Facebook group for how I started, but I’m proud of my background and what I’ve achieved.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I am not a formally trained photographer in any capacity.

My journey, at 32 years old, started 2 years ago when my fiancé Pete photographed a wedding for a friend.  Pete had wedding experience, but I had never held a DSLR before - didn’t even know what one was!  I knew nothing about ISO, DOF, shutter speed, aperture or any of the other strange words I heard.   But I was just there as an extra and my photos were a bonus - Pete was paid £100 only.  My images came out well - I had a natural eye for photography. But I discovered how much I enjoyed photography and wanted to learn more. 

I found it hard at first - photography was a foreign language to me & I thought I’d never understand it.  But I learned by doing - photography came instinctively to me - I knew how I wanted my pictures to look along with how to achieve them long before I understood the technical terms for what I was doing. 

I bought a beginner's DSLR, a Canon 700D and took shots of the kids, friends, dogs – anything & everything. We decided that with Pete’s experience, wedding photography could become a part time source of income.  We built a website, using the wedding we had done together plus one other of his for our portfolio. We didn’t expect much, but got our first enquiry & booking after 10 days.  Our first paid wedding was 6 weeks later and I was hugely nervous. But the couple knew we had just set up & were happy.  I planned that wedding in minute detail - visiting the venue, researching shots, deciding exactly where to take each of the posed shots.  It was a massive success & many of these photos are still in our portfolio.

Fast forward to now and we have shot 35 weddings. We are both primary shooters – specializing in different aspects. I learned Photoshop & Lightroom and I edit all our wedding photos, having developed a style we both love.  I research photography techniques & styles every week. But I have learned the most ‘on the job’, by actually photographing weddings. 

I will always feel nervous when we send couples their photos and I will always feel proud when they tell us we have truly captured their day.  I am also incredibly proud of the relationship we have with our couples - many of them are firm friends afterwards and these relationships are as important as the photography.

It's the social side of "social media" that makes the world a smaller place and here's a prime example. I met Kevin Gilligan through Tamron USA. He's a Tamron Image Master and a short time ago I did a Spotlight Profile about Kevin.  I always check with each artist being featured before their post runs, so I picked up the phone and called him. That led to a couple of follow-up conversations about his business and *poof* a terrific friendship was started. 

Seriously, when was the last time you picked up a phone and just had a conversation with somebody you barely knew? We text, we email, post and tweet, but NOTHING trumps actually talking to somebody. Well, ever talk with somebody and then feel like you've known them most of your life? That's what I felt in my conversation with Kevin, but I also had a chance to look at more of his work and I want to share some images that are simply out of the norm...

Kevin's a diehard artist with a passion to dissect the world most of us see, but he looks for those moments we might miss. I was first drawn into his work with this image of a surfer, but during our last conversation he told me all about wanting to shoot part of the South Bay coastline from the air. So, off he went in a private plane with only one purpose, to photograph the coastline of Los Angeles from a Cessna.

Over the last couple years you've heard a lot about special projects. In fact, both Matthew Jordan Smith and Kevin Kubota have talked a lot about them. Not every project has to have a direct purpose, at least not in the beginning. Now and then you need to just get out with a camera in your hands and shoot for the fun of it. You need special projects to get your blood flowing and push your creativity to the max.

A big thanks to Kevin for allowing me to share his images and to Tamron who introduced us! The fun of this industry is about relationships and between Kevin, the other Image Masters and the staff at Tamron, I feel pretty lucky to have all of them in my network.

A blog like this is limited on the size I can share these images. Take a look at any image at double the size just by clicking on it. 

Kevin's Tamron Gear Box

SP 10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II (model B001)
SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC (model A007)
16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD (model B016)
18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD (model B008)
SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC (model A011)
SP 90mm F/2.8 Di VC Macro (model F004)