The garage…ugh…spring cleaning hasn’t seen that place in a few years at least. It’s my fault, the garage is my job, my area and I just couldn’t get off my duff to clean it.

This morning all three of us got up and attacked it. We threw out A LOT of stuff, most of it from the cabinet in the photo below so you can’t really see it.

We did a before and after picture…it’s definitely not a WOW that looks way better, but you can see some differences for the better…cleaned the floor, organized the workbench, got rid of a bunch…hosed it out, etc.

These are HDR photos for all wondering.

Before:

After:

I like to share what I do…I tend to be that way with most things. If I like a good book, or a quality movie or television series, chances are I am going to share it with you.

Photography is no different. The problem for me though is that I post this stuff in a few places and it gets somewhat tiresome and confusing for everyone. I want people to see my work and know what I’m doing. I believe some of my photographs might sell, so it’s even more important for me to make sure it’s all seen.

Some of you may not know the best ways to do that. I post stuff on Twitter, Facebook and here. But there are three places where I’m really focusing my efforts, which I’ll list below. Hopefully these choices will allow you to choose where you want to view them.

I will still post a lot of photos here on my blog of course, especially family photos, but I may not get all my work on A Mike Life, hence these other places.

(below I mention an RSS reader/feed a few times. If you want to use one, try Google Reader. I recommend a RSS reader, it’s a great way to keep up with blogs and other informative sites out there)

JPG Magazine

This site is a high-quality, very professional photographer community. They publish a magazine a few times a year and your photos could appear in it. They like photo essays too, which means not only your pictures could get published, but also a story. They focus on themes and challenges, which have really helped me be creative. The community is fantastic and exploring thousands of photos has helped me get better.

Now you can just bookmark my JPG page by going here. If you want to follow along on your RSS Reader, then use this link. There is also an RSS feed for stories, which I’ve written three and plan on doing a few more.

On JPG I post all my best stuff. Weather, objects, people, whatever…this is probably the best place to follow other than my blog here.

Wunderground

This site is completely dedicated to weather and the outdoors, so that’s the only kinds of photos I post there. There are tons posted everyday. I will occasionally post things there that don’t make it to JPG, so if you want to see only weather stuff, than you can bookmark this link and then check it every so often.

Flickr

This is the final place I post. It’s usually behind and I upload to it once or twice a week. It’s just another place to get my work out there to so I use it and it’s home to bazillions of photos. You can bookmark my Photostream or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Future

I have a lot of things tumbling around in my head right now. I know there is someone out there who already wants to buy a print of one of my photos and I need to figure out the right way to do things. This site may get a redesign soon to accommodate a few things, but we’ll see.

I love your comments and appreciate everyone who follows what I do…it means so much to me.

I wanted to put her on the swings and let her have a good time, and of course I dragged along the camera. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I got there, but I saw some boys playing basketball and had an idea.

Right next to the basketball court is an empty slab of concrete where I assume they meant to expand someday. I took Lyla over there and just let her wander around. She took some interest in the boys playing basketball, as you can see below, but also just enjoyed exploring on her own in a new place.

I hope you enjoy these…I am so very proud of all of them, especially the first one and the last one.  I have a long, long ways to go, but I feel like I’m getting the idea when it comes to composing a good photo. That seems easier with kids or people than with inanimate objects right now, but I can truly see some growth in my abilities.

*Innocence* or *Me and My Shadow*

*Dreaming?*

*Newness*

*Look at me!*

*untitled*

*What’s next?*

They did so great…we figured they’d be yanking their little “hats” off, but they just endured and had some fun.

We trekked out to Schnepf Farms on Friday night for our annual outing to that wonderful place southeast of town. They do a great job of putting on a Fall Harvest Festival type thing, with hay rides, train rides, pie, food, rides, corn mazes and most importantly this year: a pumpkin patch.

Jina and I had been really looking forward to letting Lyla hang out in the pumpkins and taking some great photos of her. I think we snapped a few good ones, check them out below.

Here are a few of them below.

Here are a few from last Thursday…I took some in Lyla’s room while she was in the crib after a nap and then walking around. Next up, in another post, I’ll show you some from her first trip to our local park and first time swinging!

Hope you enjoy them.

This last one was taken just this past weekend.

These were all taken on October 12th,  some of them downtown, the sunset ones from around my side of town.

The two sunset ones are probably the best, but I figured I would post them all for you guys to check out.

Enjoy!

This first one is just come high clouds in an interesting formation, but the real neat part is the two birds way up there.

This is a shot of Squaw Peak from downtown Phoenix.

Some cris-crossing high clouds

Sunset over South Mountain

I almost missed this one, but pulled over the car and grabbed the shot. Absolutely beautiful.

Jina is an amazing woman and always supports me in everything I do. So of course when I invited her and Lyla along last night to take some sunset pictures, she was right there.

Just having them with me was such a blast. It’s always better for us to be together than apart.

We trekked out to Queen Creek Rd. just west of Price Rd. and pulled into a dirt road that opened up into this giant field with a great view of South Mountain.

While I got some decent photos, my favorite is the first one below. Jina and Lyla wandered into the picture by standing on that dirt road, and I noticed that the sun was lighting up the “edges” of Jina and Lyla, especially their hair. So I turned the camera to face them and snapped one of my favorite photos ever.

And if you want to see the best of the rest, here you go: