Most everyone knows that I ride my bikes everyday, but did you know that Caiden does too? Wether it is with me in his trailer, his new “blue bike,” or his indoor stationary bike/video game, he rides for hours every day!
The attached pics are from Christmas day when Caiden took his first ride. We went almost 2 miles!

Christmas morning- Caiden rode his bike around the living room and kitchen until I could get him calmed down enough to put on some clothing for a ride outside!

Looking down a bit too much!

He’s really having fun now, he picked it up really quickly.

We rode a big loop to the park where Caiden was riding his bike from one play structure to the next…and back…and forth…and back…and forth!

I’m thinking he will have the training wheels off sometime this spring (he’ll turn 3 in April). He loves to follow me around the driveway and try to bunnyhop and do wheelies like daddy. Funny thing is that with all this time of cruising around the driveway I’m actually starting to get pretty good at wheelies :)

  • Tim Halberg: haha... that's awesome! I can't wait til he's leaving you in the dust and you're at the races cheering him on ey!

    we gotta ride soon! (01.26.2008 01:14pm)

I thought I would share a couple more modeling shots just for fun. It is only a very small part of the year that I get to shoot purely for myself so I’m squeezing in as many of these as I can manage between meetings with brides (this is the busiest time of the year for wedding bookings).

This February I have some very interesting fashion shoots planned with some very talented designers as well as a trip out to the desert with a bunch of other top wedding photographers to “recharge” ourselves with something different. Knowing the group who is coming, I’m guessing there is going to be some pretty funny blog material from that trip!

I often get questions from other photographers about my lighting so I’m going to start explaining a bit more. Sorry to anyone who isn’t interested, you can just skip this part! :)
All three of these images were shot at iso 320
The top shot used 2 lights; one strobe bounced from an umbrella as the key from camera left and a smaller one shot directly at the model from camera right to create the accent light. f/6.3 @ 1/60
The second shot used basically the same lighting but both lights are un-diffused and from the opposite sides. f/7.1 1/50
The third shot used 2 lights, each at about 45 degrees to the model, both un-diffused and shot at about a 1:4 ratio. f/7.1 @ 1/80


  • Chris Stewart: Dude where do you dfind the locations. These are great Colin. I cant wait to hear your class on off camera flash in Feb!! (01.14.2008 05:18pm)

  • colinmichael: Hey Chris, how you been?!
    That first one is a parking lot next to a bunch of horse stalls, the other two are from a rooftop at Cal Poly. Without lighting they look like, well, a parking lot and a ugly rooftop lol! The other great thing about lighting is that you hardly have to do any post work when you shoot like this, all the drama is created in-camera. (01.14.2008 09:37pm)

  • Chris Stewart: WOW thats cool man the rooftop of cal poly. Did you have to go ninja style to get up there :) Thanks for sharing man. great work as usual. (01.15.2008 07:45am)

  • Anna Costa: Love it!!

    xo (01.24.2008 12:54pm)


This being the slow season for weddings and engagement shoots, I figured I would post up a couple images from some recent fashion shoots. Many wedding photographers take the winter months to relax and enjoy some much deserved time off after a long wedding season. However, I find this is the best time to push myself creatively by taking jobs in fashion and doing fine art work for myself, it is kind of like recharging my creative batteries! I really enjoy the challenge and love to continually push myself to be an even better photographer.

  • Stewart C.: Damn Colin these are hot!! The first picture is amazing but then I love love love the last picture. Such a awesome idea. Great work!! (01.06.2008 12:33am)

  • Anna Costa: Awesome Shots! It's fun to switch it up once in awhile!!

    xo (01.09.2008 11:22am)