Sweet Crystal

Sweet Crystal – Lead singer and keyboardist Marq Speck

Sweet Crystal – Bill Blatter, Martin Zarski, and David Winans

Emcee Tom Daldin

Paul Miles

Allan C. Barnes

Blackbyrd Revue

Harry Balk

Ife Mora

Cybertrybe and Haflife Firedancer

Cybertrybe and Haflife

Cybertybe accepting “Outstanding Electronic-Dance Recording”

Vinnie Dombroski

Brent Smith

Bryan Lackner

KEM

Katie Grace

Katie Grace – “Outstanding Country Recording”

Citizen Zero accepting their award for “Outstanding Rock-Pop Recording”

Insane Clown Posse presenting the award for “Best Live Performance” to The Ruiners

The Ruiners accepting the award for “Outstanding Live Performance”

Suzi Quatro – Pre Performace Speech

Suzi Quatro at the 2013 Detroit Music Awards

Press Coverage at Suzi Quatro and the Motor City Horns

Abandoned hotel not more than 10 blocks from Eastern State Penitentiary.

The actual cell of Al Capone, where he stayed for eight months in luxury. Corruption isn’t anything new.

My most elaborate edit of this batch… Water and neon lights added for emotional effect.

Bringing a tranquil feel to this cathedral of isolated cell blocks.

An example of one of the fake watchtowers at Eastern State Penitentiary

On campus…

Comparing colors and symbology between doors, windows, and trees.

A classic example of the housing near Penn State University.

The Philadelphia Penn Museum. Full of ancient artifacts, especially those hailing from Egypt.

Tre’Mar (King Martyr) is a rap artist from Taylor, MI. In this promotional image I began playing with light streaks. I wanted to reference the flow of his music.

When we shot this in Ferndale, the city backdrop was not well lit so I lifted a background from a picture I took in Minneapolis, MN a few years back.

“A Masquerade” was shot in reference to attracting a brighter more vibrant mood (much like the personality of Stephanie).

In “The Picture of Rising Falling and Rising Again” I wanted to reference a message behind Stephanie. I love the way these neon lights created a natural aura, almost as if the message itself was illuminating around her.

The title “Forever Youth” comes from Nicole’s sophomore film release “Whateverland” which is about a room full of characters who try and remain in their youth forever. Her direct gaze offers us an intense look at this spirit of youth.

“Running Stop Signs and Avoiding Authorities” is a composite that uses a few environments together. Since pumpkins are usually associated with Halloween and evil I wanted to include a young girl wearing what appears to be a halo.

“Wireframe Reference” – Using space around my model Nicole I wanted to mirror her body language to a foreign object or “artifact” from another setting. This pillar was taken from an ancient ruin site in Athens, Greece.

In “Porcelain Teenager” the original intent was to create a haunting and surreal environment. Turning the camera upside-down, however, achieved the same eerie effect. It’s almost as if Nicole is attached to the field and cannot quite escape.

In “Alcohol Syndrome” the narrative is drunkenness and the destructive force it potentially caused. It’s still a rather fun image I hope. The piano on fire came from the fact that Methodists did not allow pianos into their sanctuaries (the correlation of them being inside of bars and saloons) and these kids are very much rebelling against something (or just having a good time).

In “An Enchanted Time and Place” I took a Pocket Wizard and lit Rachel from the ground facing her looking down. Using fire I captured from my homemade flamethrower I composed fire that surrounds her from underneath.

“Rivalized Action” – This image signifies the covering of one’s face in reaction for what’s about to come. It’s undeniable. This could represent death or some presence of the unknown.

“Wedding Function Arrested” – The two models in the foreground were shot at a wedding I worked on in 2010. The background was shot in a neighborhood kitty corner from an abandoned school in Detroit. The fire was edited in afterwards. I made this image after realizing just how privileged “the white man” is in contrast to black neighborhoods.

In “A Perfect Fit for the Situation at Hand” my model Nicky and I got some fantastic shots inside of an antique store in Cement City, Mi.

In “Refracting Light” I used an adjacent mirror to balance the harsh lighting that was used to highlight the tattoo detail on Nicky’s side.

“Tamed Only From a Precise State” references Robyn, the model shown here, who is a very strong and intense person. Through all of this she remained very easy to work with inside of the Elektricity building, which had these natural red painted walls.

For “Worship Symbol Sense” I wanted to make a connection between the gated doorway behind Jay while referencing a form of the bubble mask.

In “Short Sleaves” myself and models Saki & Robyn were just experimenting with floating. Using a stool, a tripod, and some Pocket Wizards, we made up these motion-like portraits of floating upward towards something else.

“A Seniotic Chain” – Dramatic colors and a chain of circles. Title comes from the book “A Thousand Plateaus,” which is probably the most challenging book I’ve ever attempted to read.

“This is for You and Me” – Just hanging out with Robyn and Saki in Ferndale. This is the kind of shot I love to get… it’s spontaneous and natural.

In “Principles of connection and heterogeneity” Gwen is removing her shirt to reveal an outfit that mirrors her surroundings. She has stepped out of the shadows and is now illuminated in an in-between state.

“Orchid and a Becoming of the Wasp” was shot in an abandoned rec center in Detroit, Mi. Robyn stands out with her pink hair and tattoos… probably the sexiest thing I can think of inside an environment like this.

When I was working with Mary on “Floating Hedgehog” I wanted to take the floating idea a step further and a bit more unrealistic.

Don from the band Sleep Eater is posed here with a cub and hunting knife. What do you think it means?

In “Face to Face for the First Time” Stephanie and I had a great time walking around the city and getting shots that looked natural and energetic.

This is Gantt, the guy who led a bunch of us from the Love Bulgaria conference on top of a mountain that overlooked the city of Rhodes, Greece.

“Come and Get Me Illuminati” has an image of my father, my brothers birthday cake, a friend sweeping up the remains of a party I was at, and palm trees from Florida. What struck me most about this image was how flat it looked, even with all of the layers.

“Dream Bear” was the first shot I ever took with Pocket Wizards. This old bear was something my brother and I borrowed from our grandparents.

“Nothing to Read” was taken in my friend Chrissy’s backyard wearing a dress I brought along from a thrift store. I wanted her and the colors to fight for your attention at once.

“Reviving Ophelia” is the title of this image and a name of a book about the struggles teenage women have growing up.

“My Secret Public Spot” juxtaposes blue and pink. All together this scene elevates sexuality through the idea of being lifted up and recycled over and over again.

One of the better, more spontaneous band photographs I took of the Kalamazoo rock group Star Destroyer

“Vendible Display on Ice” are the only remaining images from a series I was developing about human laziness and zombie-like trance I saw in people who were walking around the mall, shopping for things that were completely useless.

“War in Real Time Provides Matchless Programming” is an image about the tradeoff between beauty and timelessness. The symbology of “No Commission  represents my frustration with creating an ideal image with an ideal model and still have it make any significance whatsoever. The blood on her chest represents sacrifice, as in the time spent attaining perfection.

“Like Astrology Blaming the Stars” uses blue, red, and see-through black together not just to heighten the sense of intense sexuality but also to look towards something much bigger.

“Leaving and Coming Right Back” is the combination of a manufactured powerslide and what now seems like ancient technology for a long-lasting structure.

“Deleted Scenes for a Conditional Future on the Outskirts of Civilization” hints at the generalization of being a single parent and the challenges that may present themselves.

“The Defense to the Drugs Make Me Wish I Had No Defenses at All” – This piece is about the drug Salvia, which is a short-lasting but intense hallucinogenic that causes visions and experiences though all five senses. The mask represents a fictional or cartoon-like character.

“A Fantasy without Consciousness” – After multiple revisions this composite took three people from three separate environments and eventually placed them into an abandoned cheese factory with hay superimposed beneath it. The overall message of this shot encompasses some kind of sexual assault.

“Arcade Party” was done for the reason of taking characters out of their environment and placing them somewhere they did not belong. This turned out to be a very random success for myself because merging these two made for a bunch of meanings.

“Avalanche” is a re-edit for a model I worked with in 2008. I wanted to illustrate female power in intensity with the beam of light in the left of the frame during a graduation ceremony.

This picture was used in Prothos Magazine to represent violence between Greek Americans and African Americans in relationships.

“Drowning in Oxygen” – The first image processed for my senior show series “Even Nostalgia Isn’t as Good as it Used to Be.” This image was awarded honorable mention in “Top Photographers of 2010″ by the Photographers Forum annual publication.

“An Empty Fortress” is my most successful image from my this series in my opinion. This one uses multiple layering techniques to represent the strange.

“Density of Information” as the title suggests, represents the limited amount of information or knowledge that is passed on (or is able to be passed on) for lower income high school students.

“Sub Communications” – This image and title reveal how communication is not something that’s always on the surface level. Often there are meta or sub communications at stake all around us.

“The Lies were Better When the World was More Simple” – As the title suggests… knowledge and rewards of school and society cheapen the fantasy world of childhood. Part of the same image series.

“Silent Alarms” is an image that represents more childhood moments but with the varying degree of “red flags” due to skin color. The institution behind Miles shown here was once a psychiatric mental institution. I show this because I think the notion that skin color makes someone better or worse inherently is absurd.

“White Diamond” – This image was the favorite of that series many of my professors talked about for my senior show at UW-Stout.

“Half Bare You Sit and Watch me do This” – Part of my “Degeneration of Youth” series.

“Hardwiring Disengagement” – This picture represents smoking as a tool for release.

“Lucky Strike” is an image that was taken from the set of the short film “Helios” by Dan Moen for the Mankato University in Minnesota.

These were shots from my photoshoot with clothing designer Sarah Michelle Furnae.

“Two Times the Weight in Another Day” is a silly composite revealing an upside-down family household.

“Unclassified” – A raw party shot of a guy who snorted cocaine moments before. You can almost taste the energy of this shot due to all the sweat.

“American” – Red, White, and blue.

Fashion shots for student Katie Holm at UW-Stout. These were taken on-location in the Wisconsin Dells.

“Dissolving in the Wilderness” is a conceptual piece showing the end of the world.

“Euphoria” – This shot is suppose to represent conformity. When I had the whole image series together at one time there was another girl force-feeding this needle into Michaela’s eye.

“The Blue Hour” is another image from that same series. This time my model Kaitlin puts the needle in herself.

“Fear of a Blank Planet” – Teenagers destroying technology. The title comes from the name of a Porcupine Tree album.

“Memories Live Longer than Dreams” – This title comes from Leland Kirby; an artist who deals with soundscapes and sampling. This is also part of my Degeneration of Youth series.

“New Beginnings” was the first shot of my now hidden series about a relationship being strained and rebuilt through the use of drugs (in this case heroin).

“Survival and Replication” represents the peak moment of human connection. The first kiss. Survival & Replication, from a purely distant scientific point of view, is the ultimate accomplishment of human beings.

This was part of my image series used for Prothos Magazine to show violence in relationships and abuse.

“There Must Be More” – I wanted a distant stare from my model Brittany. This was the last image from my now dissolved series “Needles and Pins Make the Medicine Go Down.”

“Yes” – Taken when my friend Brian and Pat went to explore some haunted woods on the outskirts of an old Wisconsin city.

“Forever and Never” is one of the first real modeling shoots I ever went on with someone I didn’t know very well. Jayna.

“Its Breaking the Jail of Ribs“

“Schools Out for the Summer” is the pinnacle shot from a series I created the day after I watched the fim “Elephant.”

“Shallow Hearts Make Love More Bearable” – Title comes from my friend Chase. This is the American Dream.

“Smoke Up” was a hand colored extra shot I got while working with Justine on her fashion shoot.

“Tattoo” – with Morgan. The girl who really got me into photography in the first place.

“The More it Seems You Move (Away)” – Heidi was a champ in helping me get this shot!

“This is Better than Cartoons” – Children looking out the window of the Empire State building.

“Waist Deep“

“Words Unspoken but Heard” was an image going for a good vs evil / blonde vs brunette theme. One is sweet and innocent and the other is hinting at something else.

“You Won’t Feel a Thing” – Becky wore a stunning red dress for me when I visited her in college. I added the snow and text. She was great to work with and pulled it off well!

Crooked Lake in Kalamazoo, MI. I’ve had so many memories here growing up as a kid.

“Body by Fisher” was the slogan that this Fisher Body Plant #21 in Detroit held onto until April Fool’s day in 1984 after a long history and partnership with General Motors. Fisher was founded in 1908 by Albert Fisher with the help of his nephews Charles and Fred. Ownership was briefly transfered to the Carter Color Coat Company for three years until it was officially left to waste in 1993.

The textures in this place were unreal. I decided to enter this building with no tripod or external lighting. I was forced to notice details I generally overlooked in the past.

I don’t know what this was that caused this kind of corrosion. But it’s something I really enjoyed working with. The mind naturally makes some kind of connection with two circles.

Negative space in the Fisher Body Plant, Detroit.

Detail shot of two towers with crosses while machinery rips apart the remains of its school below. Taken in Detroit, MI.

The Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit is where luxury Packard cars were assembled. The 3,500,000-square-foot plant, designed by Albert Kahn, was opened in 1903 and closed in 1958, though other businesses operated on the premises or used it for storage until the late 1990. Since its abandonment, the plant has served as a haven for graffiti artists, urban explorers, paintballers and auto scrappers. To this day, the structure for the plant remains mostly intact.

My most successful water reflection shot I achieved in post-production.

A panoramic of the 3rd or 4th floor of the Packard Plant in Detroit, Mi.

The Packard plant “entrance.” Blue skies just completed and elevated this building in a way grey skies cannot.

The Continental Factory still stands on Detroit’s east side and was built in 1912. This 12 acre factory provided engines to Detroit car and truck manufacturers the during the 1940′s and 1950′s. It also played a major role in building tank engines for the US Army and aircraft engines for the US Navy throughout the 1960′s until the the plant closed in 1965, due in part to the increased militancy of the labor force.

The Continental Factory exterior overview shot.

A beautiful shot I got just before the fog lifted in Kimball, Michigan.

This image was taken from the Galata Tower, which is a medieval stone tower in the Galata/Karaköy quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, just to north of the Golden Horn. This is one of the city’s most striking landmarks because it offers a panoramic vista of Old Istanbul and its environs. The tower was built as Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) in 1348 during an expansion of the Genoese colony in Constantinople. It stood as the tallest building in Istanbul at 219½ feet (66.9 m) when it was built in 1348.

A view of the city of Istanbul in its glory from a tilt-shift perspective.

A highly stylized re-edit of a busy street center in Istanbul, Turkey.

Perhaps the most “epic” shot I got during my visit in Turkey. The Hagia Sophia is a great architectural beauty and important monument both for Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Later in 1453 it was converted to a mosque, and now a museum at the Turkish Republic.

Ornate detail shot of one of the markings. A black raven just happened to be coming by, waiting for me to take his picture!

Within walking distance from the Bazaar in Istanbul is more and more shopping centers. Nearly everyone was on foot or motorcycle because parking is so difficult if you are not a vendor.

Beautiful graffiti detail in the alleys of Istanbul, Turkey.

Now entering Bulgaria… It was here I noticed the most vast divergence of architecture and standards of living conditions.

This is a general shot of the slums we encountered visiting the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria. This “roma” or gypsy village illustrates the true difference in living conditions and lifestyle the poorer darker-skinned “romas” live with. No more than a 20 minute walk from this location took us into a neighboring village with wealth and luxury I’m sure most here have never even imagined.

Taken on the outskirts of Bulgaria in a Roma (Gypsy) village. Our team was involved in working with the kids from these villages.

Hotel Semkovo is the hotel we stayed at during the two week visit of 2012 in the Rila Mountains of Bulgaria. It is located at 1750 metres above sea level, and is located 17 kilometres from the town of Belitsa. This place was booming in the 1970′s during the height of communist bloc controlled by the Soviet Union but has since begun to fall apart.

Water streams from the tops of the mountains in the Sofia Provence of Bulgaria. This was about an hours hike from the hotel.

A lush green forest on the mountains of the Sofia Provence, Bulgaria.

This is another example of turning a daytime shot into one taken at night instead. The sky effects were achieved using fireworks.

The St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (Bulgarian: Храм-паметник „Свети Александър Невски“, Hram-pametnik, Sveti Aleksandar Nevski“) is a Bulgarian Orthodox cathedral in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Built in Neo-Byzantine style, it serves as the cathedral church of the Patriarch of Bulgaria and is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world, as well as one of Sofia’s symbols and primary tourist attractions.

The Church of St. George is The oldest and best preserved monument of architecture since Roman times. It was built in the beginning of the 4th century AD and was considered during the reign of the roman emperor Constantine the Great, who reigned 306 – 337. This temple is situated in the courtyard of the Government Office in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The city of Athens, Greece. If you squint enough you can see the Parthenon over the hill towards the center of the image.

Composite of a vandalized building in the ancient Agora and the Parthenon under construction.

The Parthenon is one of the most famous buildings in the world located on the Acropolis Hill in Athens. This temple was built ca. 488 – 480 B.C.E. What stuck out to me most during my visit in the summer of 2012 was how this major tourist attraction spot was one of the few places graffiti had not touched. The city of Athens in Greece itself has been getting more and more vandalism due to political unrest recently.

This image was taken just below the walkway to get up to the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Do you know what this is?

“Mortality” – Playing with a different backdrop behind these ancient ruins. Getting a bit darker here for a moment…

The most impressive display of artistic graffiti expression downtown Athens, Greece. Believe me, I wish I saw more of this. Most of the graffiti was just written words I could not make out with no substance wheresoever for artistic merit.

I don’t remember what this building was called unfortunately. If you’re some history buff and have an idea I’d love to hear it!

Livening up the city of Athens and its architecture with some fireworks.

I was curious with experimenting with light streaks and abstractions over ancient remains.

“Rhodes Cavern” – Inside of the fortitude on top of the mountain we spent nearly half-an-hour to get to. That red light is natural, believe it or not.

By far the most rewarding shots I took during my stay in Europe. This picture was taken from the very top of an overlooking structure rumored to be built for King David. This miraculous view overlooks the city of Rhodes in Greece. This is a panoramic with my 24-70 f/2.8L lens and is about 60 megapixels.

This picture was taken in Rhodes, Greece and is from the lower floor of a tower foundation rumored to once belong to King David that overlooks the city.

Kavala (Greek: Καβάλα), is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala regional unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos. Kavala is located on the Egnatia motorway and is a two-hour drive to Thessaloniki (160 km west) and forty minutes drive to Drama (37 km north) and Xanthi.

This picture was taken just before nightfall in the city of Kavala, Greece. They were having a fair when we visited that evening…

Perhaps one of my most “magical” shots in the city of Kavala, Greece.

Suggestive themes with an illustrated approach. These are not the twin towers but that’s probably what you thought of.

Another fog image. This time from Florida overlooking one of the canals in Marco Island.

A second look at a picture taken from a plane window. I wanted to go for colors that were tranquil/peaceful.

The idea and inspiration from this image came from driving. When you’re driving time slips by and almost no memory of anything specific stands out. We grow accustomed to seeing the same things over and over again and our minds almost turn themselves off.

This image is symbolic in that Detroit (at the time of this writing) has a 44% literacy rate. Something is definitely wrong with that fact and something needs to be done about it.

Taken in the front lawn of a destroyed home in Pleasant Grove, AL.

Taken at sunset inside one of the destroyed houses. The entire roof of this house was blown away but most of the personal belongings remained intact.

This is probably the best shot I got during the entire trip of destruction from the tornado that ripped apart 4 miles wide the small town of Pleasant Grove, AL.

Panoramics showing more destruction… There is just no better way of showing what happened than to get as wide as possible. This was accomplished using only one lens. My trusty Canon 24070 f/2.8L.

Taken in an undisclosed location in Minnesota with my friend and photography Joey Tichenor. This was once used to fashion bombs for WWII.

The original of this image was quite boring. I decided to turn this from a daytime to a nighttime image. The headlights were created from a bunch of photoshop brushes and some lens flare effects.

When I worked on these images they were for my most ambitious image series “Commercialism Will be the New Symbol of Status While Hollywood Lies Dead.”

This series pushed compositing objects taken from a variety of places and fixing them inside of another location. Most of the objects had a religious or dogmatic background.

This image series “Commercialism Will be the New Symbol of Status While Hollywood Lies Dead” was featured as an editors pick for Behance’s Photography Served.

Taken somewhere in Minneapolis, MN. I wanted to create an image that was moody and haunting.

Optical illusion and one of my first composites.

This image was taken on a photo club expedition from UW-Stout.

This image is untouched except for some color adjustments. This is the only image I’ve ever used as a final environmental piece as well as backdrop for the image series “Even Nostalgia Isn’t as Good as it Used to Be.”

A conceptual piece about the church and its “exit strategy” for getting followers.

A conceptual piece about abduction.

Taken in Menomonie, WI. This picture always had an “end of the world” feel to it.

I woke up early for no apparent reason one day and took advantage of the fog. Fog is an ongoing theme in a lot of my work. This, along with the next seven images below is part of my “strange spots” series.

One of the first images I took from a plane window when I flew back to Minnesota briefly.

Part of an ongoing series that deals with pollution. Looking at it another way one could see achievement and progress in manufacturing.

Taken at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.

This was the first pseudo-HDR image I created using Adobe Lightroom. I combined three separate exposures from the same image and added some rain effects.

Still one of my flagship images from a scene that happened right in my hometown neighborhood in Austin, MN. This was caused by an explosion and gallons numbering in the thousands to put out the fires. When the water froze overnight this is what was left.

Taken during the Christmas season of 2008. These are the the first surreal images I ever considered to be good enough and remain some of my favorites due to the interesting nature of fire and ice.

The final image from this abandoned house in Austin, MN. There was a house fire that must have caused the family to leave in a hurry. Most of the artifacts in the house were untouched but half of the house was burned very badly.

The uppermost floor of the same house. It may sound cheesy, but there was seriously something evil in this place.

My first real exploration of an abandoned house turned out to be the same house my friend caught a ghost on his camera.

The term “failsafe” comes from light experimentation and my ability to hand-select the most interesting compositions after throwing away hundreds of “bad” images. With this train of thought, in theory, I could not fail to make an impression.

My first nature winterscape from Austin, MN at the Nature Center.