Surprise Surprises come in all shapes and sizes. And depending on where a surprise lands on the surprise spectrum, one either loves or hates them. On the bad side fall such surprises as: Surprise in-law visits Blue lights in your rear view mirror Surprise birthday parties On the good side fall such surprises as: It’s…

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Neither rain nor sleet nor snow stays this photographer from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. And only in this way is Beaufort Photography Co. like the United States Postal Service. Over the years I’ve photographed in some really cold locations. In October 1990, I was in Wyoming at the foot of the Big…

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Happiness is… George Burns once commented, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family…in another city.” Not so for the Munsons and the Mannings. These families exude a joy and happiness that truly defines the meaning of the word “family.” Their laughter with (and at) one another and their love for one another was…

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Photography 101: Composition We’re half way through our series, Photography 101 Back to Basics. Remember, whether you’re a professional photographer, a photography enthusiast, or simply own a camera, we all play by the same basic photography principles. So far we’ve covered six of twelve basics: Photography 101: Exposure Photography 101: Aperture Photography 101: Depth of…

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This past weekend I happened to post a couple of photos on my personal Instagram account (@mikegothard) which mentioned I was logging some time photo shoot location scouting in preparation for several photo shoots over the next couple of weeks. A friend in the film industry messaged me asking if “location scouting” for a photo…

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Photography 101: ISO Light is an amazing thing. I once viewed Saturn through a telescope and was able to actually see its rings. I was looking at a planet that was 746 million miles away. How far away is that? Light travels at 186,000 miles per second or 670 million miles per hour. Traveling at…

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“I got a Nikon camera I love to take photographs So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away.” So sang Paul Simon the summer of 1973. Truth be told, I prefer shooting in black-and-white but that’s a story for another day. Though invented decades earlier, color photographs didn’t become main stream until the 1960s. A few…

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Photography 101: Shutter Speed Whether you’re a professional photographer, a photography enthusiast, or simply own a camera, we all play by the same basic photography principles. In addition to my other biweekly posts, each month this year I’m covering a different photography basic. You can find the other posts in this series by clicking below:…

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Smile and say cheese. Robert Heinecken wrote, “Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.” I love the artistic, creative, and journalistic nuances of photography. The…

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I recently came across a book filled with some of the most amazing images I’ve ever seen of 1950s Hong Kong street photography. Called A Hong Kong Memoir, these photographs were captured by a teenager, Ho Fan, who arrived in Hong Kong from Shanghai in 1949. Armed with a simple Rolleiflex camera, he managed to…

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