My Mentor With a Colored Past

Hey, pic junkies! I've got something really cool, and really awesome to show you today! I'll be talking about how I got interested in photography, my past experiences, and someone very dear to me. Hit the jump to find out what it is!

My interest in photography started when I was a tiny 7th grader. That was almost seven years ago. All I had a Nikon Coolpix, and a love for landscapes (and I still have both of those things!). I would have kept taking photos like this one:

Now there's nothing wrong with pics like that. But there's also nothing particularly...particular...about them. It's just a pretty picture. It doesn't say much. I wanted striking imagery - stuff that your eyes can't see (not without help). I wanted to stun the viewer into seeing something they could, only when they looked hard enough. I wanted the viewer to see what they could only see if they tried hard enough. I wanted people to see the world differently when they looked at my photos.

It wasn't until I met a man named Michael Bloom, that I realized this. His work - his photos, which had a painting-like quality to them - is what gave me that extra little push. It's what inspired me.

The Nerf War attendees. I'm there in the center, Mike is the guy
in brown, on the far left.

Michael himself was a huge photography buff, for a long time too. He was around my age when he started - back when developing film was still a thing. Yeah. He knows his stuff.

I met Mike at a Nerf war (YEEEAHH - remember those?) a couple years ago. He was a fellow player, alongside his son. He was one of the nicest guys I've ever met, but it wasn't until I had mentioned my interest in photography that we had "clicked" so to speak. At the end of the day, we spent more time talking about lenses, exposure times, contrast, and cameras more than we did Nerfing.

I stayed in contact with him, and as we talked, he showed me how to utilize my camera to the best of it's abilities, gave me advice on what to shoot, and he even gave me one of his old cameras (which broke, so I don't use it anymore :/ ). Eventually, he started taking me out to "show me the ropes" as it were. He threw a camera at me, and told me what to do, 'til my work resulted in some awesome pics. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have gotten so involved in my hobby.

He continued to mentor me, and to this day, still helps me out here and there.

Anyway, he gave me permission to share some of his work. It's really fantastic, and some of the best stuff I've seen. The way light and shadow, color and contrast play with each other is so rad, it's literally almost unreal. Scroll down to check out some of Mr. Bloom's pics.

This is my desktop wallpaper.

Military Base in San Pedro, CA

Stars and a sunset - still have yet to master that.

Love the clouds in this one.

Very surreal. Don't know why I think that, but it feels so dreamy, ya know?

You can see more of Michael's work over on his website, michaelbloomphotography.com. He's got quite the library, and quite a history, so do please take a gander - it's definitely worth your time.

I'll have more posts next week concerning myself, and hopefully an interview with Mike, so stay tuned!

...and as always, thanks for reading!

--Aaron F.