Greetings!

I am Mike Briggs, the lesser half of michaelangela photography. As a young boy growing up in rural Maine, I developed a keep interest in the great outdoors very early in life. One summer we had a whitetail deer doe coming into the back field regularly in the early morning. I would get up early and watch for her from my upstairs bedroom window. Wanting to get a photograph of this amazing deer, my parents bought me the latest technology in camera gear; a Kodak Tele Instamatic, wide angle and telephoto all in one. I anxiously awaited for her and like clockwork she showed herself at first light. I used a whole roll of film taking photos, can't remember if it was 24 or 36 exposures. I wasted no time sending the little 110 cartridge off to be developed.

Needless to say, I was quite disappointed when all the negatives came back undeveloped with a note that they were too dark to process. The deer was certainly an early riser. Not to be overcome with my early failure in photography, I vowed to get me a real camera, a 35mm SLR, like in the outdoor magazines that I always read in the school library during study periods. I remember the beautiful photographs in Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, Sports Afield, and Fur Fish & Game. The magazines are all gone now, except Fur Fish & Game. I still get their magazine in the mail every month. They are over 100 years old and still publishing a print magazine.

I did get a 35mm SLR Pentax K-1000. A great camera. Then a Pentax ME Super. Even a Pentax LX. All great cameras. Shooting film and slides, many of my photos weren't spectacular by any means, but at least I was able to get the exposure correct. Unlike my first try with the Kodak Tele Instamatic and that first deer!

I watched digital take off. Pretty slow at first, but it progressed quite fast in the big scheme. Some said it would never match film, but it seems to have done well. It's nice to be able to just delete the bad ones, just saying.

I haven't gotten into mirrorless, unless you'd count my Sony RX100M6. It's pretty impressive for its size. I'm happy with my SLR cameras, even if they are DSLRs. I think I will stick with my Canon 7D, 5DMark2, 5DMark4, and EF lenses for the time being.

One of our biggest boosts to photography was not equipment related, but rather location. The years we spent in Alaska was nothing short of awesome. It is definitely a photo rich environment. It is of course true that there is great beauty everywhere and all around us. All we need to do is look.

Keep shooting and keep looking up!