SPOTLIGHT – Michael Hickey – Nov 2014

Michael Hickey
Levittown, PA
The image I've chosen for my "portrait" happens to be of my wife and me -- shot two minutes after we were married!

I've chosen this one because nothing can be more appropriate as far as my interest in photography is concerned. It was in 1995 that my then-girlfriend Janet took me to Longwood Gardens to shoot my very first roll of 35mm film. She let me borrow her Olympus OM-1, and I shot, of course, a complete roll of garbage! However, at the time, Janet saw some real promise in those images, and simply kept supporting my efforts, however feeble they may have been. >From that point onward, my interest literally exploded in an exponential fashion, and to say that my now-wife 'created a monster' can be considered quite the understatement! She has been, and always will be, the one most responsible for starting this fire within me, a fire that continues to rage.

Janet bought me my first camera, the Nikon FA, for Christmas of 1995. If we were going to share our passion for photography, we may as well both have our own cameras! In March of 1996, I bought my first two lenses. Now I had my very own photographic outfit! So, when asked, I tell people that I started in this precious art in March of 1996. Upon looking back at my first attempts, I can laugh heartily and simply say that I sucked! I really had no style whatsoever, no understanding of the proper use of good techniques, no knowledge of choosing a strong subject, and definitely zero knowledge of what "good" lighting conditions were. To my credit, I did have one thing going for me: passionate enthusiasm. It was this enthusiasm that led me to read books by the modern masters of the field of photography that I leaned towards, Landscape and Nature. My very first book was John Shaw's "Landscape Photography", of which I understood next to nothing. But I kept at it. More books were read, more images were shot (and analyzed by myself, Janet, and other esteemed friends/photographers), and the next thing I knew, it all "clicked" (excuse the pun, but it's true!)

And so ended sleeping until 11am on weekends! I was at first rather annoyed at having my weekend beauty sleep interrupted, but once I "saw the light," the monster was in full force. To this day, nothing stirs my soul like being involved in the moment-by-moment change in the light show that Mother Nature puts on in those fleeting moments before sunrise and sunset...but I favor the pre-dawn/sunrise light - to me it's quieter, more mysterious and ethereal. Throw in some fog, and I get so excited that it's not uncommon for me to dance like a fool!

I take pride in the fact that I'm completely self-taught. Not a single class was taken, ever. For me, there is no better classroom experience than actually being out in the field, being one with Nature. I like to consider myself a product of "technique over technology," because I still use the FA and F3, both fully manual cameras. I'm too interested in becoming better with the equipment that I have than I am in buying newer equipment. My shooting interests can be summed up with this statement (from one of my favorite books, "The Tao of Photography"): "I'm not interested in shooting new things, but in seeing things new." This has proven itself many times over each time I return from a place I've been to before, I come home with different, often better, images (this is more a compliment to Nature than to myself).

After analyzing my work for the past six years, I've concluded that my favorite type of shooting is the "Intimate Landscape." I'm constantly looking for Nature's lines, textures, patterns, colors, and shapes - seeing how they work with, and against, one another. My favorite images usually involve quickly passing moments: spotlighting on a strong landform, lifting mists off a lake, and animals at complete peace in their environment are just a few examples. I use nothing but natural light, always. I've never used a flash, and never will. And I'm perfectly at peace with any image I may miss by not using flash. There's more than enough images out there for me to catch with Nature's light...

Photography has been a gift to me from my gift from God, my wife Janet. We shall share this passion as we share our lives...along the way, the images are just a bonus to the friends we've met and the experiences we've shared.