Michael Lesher 9/7/21 Michael Lesher 9/7/21

W04: let's shoot a race again!

This week was a blast! I was invited to shoot the Gorges Ithaca Half Marathon by my good friends Ron Heerkens Jr. and Ian Golden at Red Newt Racing. This is the fifth time that I’ve had the pleasure of photographing this race and as usual the event was SO MUCH FUN.

The early morning drive to Ithaca provided some beautiful sunrise opportunities and throughout the day you couldn’t have asked for better weather to run (or photograph) a race.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day…with a bonus few from my post-race trip to the top of Taughannock Falls.

Michael Lesher 9/1/21 Michael Lesher 9/1/21

W03: a bit of nature

Michael Lesher 8/24/21 Michael Lesher 8/24/21

W02: I love portraiture ;)

Michael Lesher 8/14/21 Michael Lesher 8/14/21

W01: Introducing Weeklies

Weeklies are going to be a way for me to share what I have created over the course of any given week. I plan on releasing an update every Monday and I hope that they will simultaneously inspire me to get out and create something more often, as well as allow me to share something that you might enjoy. To that end, I’d love to hear from you on a regular basis. Cheers!

All photos available for purchase. Contact me for details

Michael Lesher 5/11/21 Michael Lesher 5/11/21

Software in the Way

For the past year or so, I’ve diligently tried to convert my workflow to Lightroom CC. As a person who rides a motorcycle, I was mostly just curious if I could make an iPad/Mobile-only workflow work because maximum portability is an attractive proposition. Turns out that while I have had some success, it’s time to let the experiment die. The software feels like it is blocking me from what I want to do…take photos.

So, back to the old workflow. Macbook + Lightroom Classic + cloud syncing. I lose a few things by going backwards, but I found returning to the old habits to be welcome and liberating. If you’d like to hear more about the past year, let me know in the comments. Maybe I’ll work up an in-depth review/experience post.

Until then, here are a few photos that I shot over the past few months. Nothing special, just playing around…and feeling good doing it.

Michael Lesher 11/24/20 Michael Lesher 11/24/20

Dramatic

A few weeks ago, I was marveling at how colorful the world was. Leaves were changing. Skies were crisp. The sun was bright.

Since then, the world has gotten significantly more somber and dramatic.

FUJI X-T3 // 50-140mm

Michael Lesher 11/17/20 Michael Lesher 11/17/20

Tire Kicked

I have been kicking tires on the Fuji 50-140 f/2.8 for a few years now. I had considered a few other zooms, but since I generally prefer prime lenses, I was mostly interested in a zoom that claimed to achieve prime quality and was fast. Hence, I didn’t have too much motivation to do anything more than research. As I researched, however, nearly every review that I saw was reporting nothing but outstanding performance and speed. Still, I was a bit skeptical, but also - in the time of COVID - incredibly bored, so I kicked a tire and picked one up.

I'm pleased to confirm that the lens is FAST and with the recent firmware update to the X-T3 to address auto-focusing, the combination is incredibly fast in nearly every situation I've used it in. Additionally, the image quality is outstanding. I haven't done much pixel peeping, but when I nail the focus, the images it produces are tack sharp. I'm really looking forward to putting this lens through the paces.

Here are a some test shots from this week. Let me know what you think below.

Michael Lesher 11/9/20 Michael Lesher 11/9/20

Passing It On

Over the course of this pandemic, we've chosen to have our boys participate in their school remotely and we’ve fully embraced it. It hasn't been without challenge, but one of the unexpected benefits of remote learning is that I have had the opportunity to become Colin's art teacher. Our photography classes have largely focused on camera operation, composition and basic post processing, but I always try to include a photo walk to put the new skills to good use. This week, our photo walk was a stroll through Fairport. I'm really enjoying this experience. Maybe once we're all able to safely gather, I'll host a workshop or two.

Michael Lesher 11/8/20 Michael Lesher 11/8/20

Guess who is back?

I'm not going to lie, but I have been in a slump on here. The past 4 years have diverted my attention from maintaining this blog to what I would consider "more pressing matters" (i.e. social justice, local politics, etc.) and frankly self care. It's been a long 4 years. Still, I have been photographing a lot to share and if you follow me on Instagram, you'll have likely seen some of it.

So, here is to dusting this place off and sharing some of what I've been up to over these years and what I'll be doing going forward. Welcome back.

Michael Lesher 1/9/19 Michael Lesher 1/9/19

All of the things we can miss

So, it is 2019 and one of the things that I would like to improve upon is simply saying, ‘yes’ more frequently. Like most people, I think, I tend to stay in my lane and will rebuff opportunities that require me to take a path less traveled. Simple example, I am a runner who can log dozens of miles in the course of a week, but if I am asked to simply go on a walk, I tend to decline the offer. No good reason why, I just have never particularly enjoyed strolling about. The problem with this behavior is that I don’t even know what I am missing by making these choices.

This weekend, Christy asked me to walk with her and like always, my initial inclination was to decline. The weather was cold, grey and uninviting, but I grabbed my camera and decided to say yes. Within 10 minutes of walking, the sun parted and we were presented with a wonderful display of evening color. It felt validating and that I am on the right track with this year’s shift in perspective.

Oxbow - Fairport, NY | FUJI XT-3 35mm f/2

Michael Lesher 7/9/16 Michael Lesher 7/9/16

Get Wider

I've just returned from a brief visit to the Adirondacks, where I was able to spend some quality time hiking and shooting a ton of photos. No real goal in mind other than to relax and create.

Somewhere along the way, it became apparent that in order to really capture some of the more breathtaking scenes, my wide angle Fujifilm 10-24mm wasn't going to get wide enough. Thankfully, some releases ago, Lightroom integrated their Stacked Panorama feature, which greatly streamlined merging images, allowing for easy panorama creation in post.

I've just returned from a brief visit to the Adirondacks, where I was able to spend some quality time hiking and shooting a ton of photos. No real goal in mind other than to relax and create.

Here are some of the panoramas that I shot this week. Let me know what you think in the comments. Otherwise, there are plenty of non-panorama photos coming in a blog post shortly and as always, check out my work on Instagram.

ADIRONDACKS, NY // FUJIFILM X-T1 w 10-24mm

Michael Lesher 6/9/16 Michael Lesher 6/9/16

Smalltown

The world spins, faster and faster every day. For the better part of my life, I have embraced the building momentum with technology, gymnastic scheduling and an overarching desire to be part of it all. From time-to-time, however, we all need to carve out some time to recharge or gather ourselves. Generally, you will hear me drone on about forests, trees, nature and generally being outside as my chief source of recharging. What I might overlook in these sentiments is quite literally the place that we have chosen to live though.

The world spins, faster and faster every day. For the better part of my life, I have embraced the building momentum with technology, gymnastic scheduling and an overarching desire to be part of it all. From time-to-time, however, we all need to carve out some time to recharge or gather ourselves. Generally, you will hear me drone on about forests, trees, nature and generally being outside as my chief source of renewal. What I might overlook in these sentiments though, is quite literally the place that we have chosen to live.

For me, our small-town of Fairport, NY is as much a part of my attempt to slow the various distractions in my life as anything else. Sure, it is as subject to change as anything else, but the attempt that it seems to make toward retaining it’s history and remembering that life is meant to be lived and enjoyed is easy to gloss over.

Looking at it another way, Fairport - and in fact most small towns - help remind me that despite the incessant crush to keep up with the pack, we can take the time to slow down and appreciate where we are and all we have done to get here.

MEMORIAL DAY 2016 - FUJIFILM X-T1

Michael Lesher 5/13/16 Michael Lesher 5/13/16

Renewal

I am always struck by springtime. In the span of a few weeks, a seemingly lifeless landscape bursts forth with new life and color - bringing with it a sense of renewal. No matter how many times I experience it, I can't help but feel energized by the transformation.

FUJIFILM X-T1 18-135mm

Michael Lesher 4/28/16 Michael Lesher 4/28/16

2016 Muddy Sneaker Trail Race

To my mind, every year the trail racing season only really starts when Mort says "Go" at the Muddy Sneaker Trail Race. It is a classic race with a long history that ends up being a family reunion of sorts. It is a place where everyone shakes off the winter, breathes fresh air and enjoys the upstate NY scenery as they beat themselves up across 12 miles of hilly terrain.

Traditionally at Muddy Sneaker, the weather is cold and the skies are grey, but this year we were blessed with blue bird skies and warm weather. Of course, I was there with a camera in hand. My goal in processing these images was to capture the vibrancy of the environment, as the colors burst forth in their full Springtime glory. I hope you enjoy!

HI TOR NAPLES, NY - FUJIFILM X-T1

Full Gallery Here

Michael Lesher 4/19/16 Michael Lesher 4/19/16

A Week of Monochrome

I don’t often work in black and white. It isn’t that I don’t like or appreciate it, but it just rarely occurs to me to either shoot or process in monochrome. After seeing so many striking monochrome images from other Fujifilm X-shooters in my Instagram feed, I decided that for a week, I would limit myself to only black and white to see what I could learn. Here are the results.

FUJIFILM X-T1 10-24mm

Michael Lesher 3/3/16 Michael Lesher 3/3/16

The Sky Calls To Us

This week marked the return of Astronaut Scott Kelly from his 340+ day stay aboard the International Space Station. This momentous occasion, coupled with my own trip to the Kennedy Space Center a few weeks ago, has really reminded me of just how important exploration is to humankind. When I see all of the chaos, anger and dysfunction in the world today, I need only to look to pioneers like Captain Kelly and his brethren to find hope.

Carl Sagan once said that, "the sky calls to us" and I couldn't agree more.

Kennedy Space Center - Fujifilm X-T1

Michael Lesher 2/24/16 Michael Lesher 2/24/16

Chrome & Curves

Art, history, and science are all tremendously important fields of study for me - arguably the most important. The order of importance is nearly equal between them, but at the end of the day I believe that those three fields represent humanity's best. Each brings their own perspective, naturally, but together they ultimately coalesce into one unified snapshot of mankind.

What we create, what we have done, and what we are striving to discover - respectively.

Clearly, there are many subjects that can express all three fields simultaneously, but one that has always resonated with me as being singularly a work of art, a glimpse into the past, and an appreciation of the knowledge gained by the technological advances it provides has been the automobile.

This week I was able to visit the Elliot Museum in Stuart, Florida, which bills itself as a location that “…enriches the community through its wide variety of exhibits, collections, classes and lectures…” and while I don’t disagree that they have a wide variety of collections, by far the bulk of the museum is dedicated to the automobile - at this time, specifically Grand Touring Cars from the 1950s to the present. The cars represent everything that I love about art, history, and science, in all of their chrome and curved glory.

Stuart, Florida, Fujifilm X-T1 10-24mm

I immediately fell in love with this 1965 Porsche 356-C Coupe

As if on cue, immediately after our time at the Elliot, we spotted this beauty.

Michael Lesher 2/17/16 Michael Lesher 2/17/16

GoPro, What?!?

Just because I am primarily a Fujifilm shooter doesn’t mean that I don’t love to experiment with other products. GoPro for example has consistently been offering cameras that have been interesting to me. They serve a niche, but within that spectrum they clearly seem to excel. Given that I love (and shoot) action sports, their products have been on my radar for years. I just needed an opportunity to branch out into the GoPro world. This Christmas, Christy gave me that opportunity by gifting me a GoPro Hero 4 Black.

Honestly, at first I was very excited, but a bit noncommittal about the camera. Not that it wasn’t awesome or that there was any lack of excitement on my part, but going from shooting my Fujifilm cameras in manual 99.9% of the time, the prospect of the GoPro camera operating in basically full auto all of the time wasn’t something that I had trust in. I like control. I like being able to learn the inner workings of a system and manage it to the fullest. Upon initial inspection, the “simplistic” system that GoPro provides did not make me feel that I had enough control. This past week, however, I had the opportunity to put the camera through it’s paces. Short story, I was partially right…but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t incredibly fun.

Let’s get this out of the way - a GoPro might seem simple on the surface, but taking the time to learn the inner workings can be complex and well worth the effort. In my case, I was partially interested in the video opportunities that it presented, but I was really excited to have a wide angle, burst mode, waterproof camera. I spent some time brushing up on what I could do with it. Heading to Florida for break provided the perfect opportunity to work within that space and on day one I put the GoPro through the paces.

My primary test - water. Water is interesting to me, but tricky to photograph. Not that it is hard to photograph, but it is hard to come up with a compelling composition that is worth photographing. Thankfully, I have very active kids that can create scenarios that otherwise may not present themselves.

Here are the results of some burst mode photos.

GOPRO HERO 4 BLACK

As you can see, I didn’t limit myself to water. I am a firm believer that when an interesting perspective presents itself, the best camera in the world is the one you have in your hand. In this case, I was presented with a few other opportunities to try out the GoPro as a new option. Can you blame me?

You might ask, “what did you learn?” from these shots with the GoPro.

Short answer, I learned a lot. Not the least of which is that I won’t be switching to GoPro as a daily shooter, but as stated earlier this is a camera for a niche - and within that niche, it is awesome. One thing that was immediately obvious to me was that as a still camera, the GoPro changed my paradigm. For example, I generally set up for a shot and think a lot about how I want to compose it. I then think about the camera and set it up to support my vision, before shooting anything. With the GoPro, there was very little of that. If I could formulate the idea in my mind, get in position and I would just start shooting until the opportunity presented itself. For 20 usable images, I shot approximately 200 photos. That is a huge difference to how I generally shoot.

To that end, not being able to see what I was composing was a bit disconcerting at first. Clearly, the design of the GoPro in general is meant to serve size over compositional convenience, but once I got the hang of where the field of view was, it actually became relatively liberating. Before long, I was just pointing it at a scene and firing away with abandon (see previous “…shot approximately 200 photos…” statement). It was pretty carefree.

Definitively, within its niche, the GoPro is fantastic.

For action shots, I learned that it is hard to beat. With little to no effort on my part, it largely out performed my Canon 5D MKII or my X-T1 - again, for action shots. You could argue that it doesn’t shoot RAW or that you can’t change aperture, speed, etc., etc., etc. and you would be right. That isn't the set that it is trying to compete with though. This is truly a waterproof point and shoot camera and one that requires very little from the shooter. It is severely limited to it’s niche. I would be hard pressed to use it for much outside of the action genre, but I do feel a bit compelled to take it out next time I shoot a skateboarder, runner or cyclist to see if it can do better than my X-T1… you know, for fun! And ultimately, that is what I found the GoPro to be - dead simple fun.

Michael Lesher 2/10/16 Michael Lesher 2/10/16

Constellations & Contours

I’ll let you in on a secret. I don't love flying. It's not so much the act of flying that gets me or even the taking off or landing, but just the lack of personal control in what is largely a Boolean experience. Once an aircraft is flying, it is either flying or it is falling, (arguably it could be both) and just being along for the ride is disconcerting to me.

I’ll let you in on a secret. I don't love flying. It's not so much the act of flying that gets me, or even the taking off or landing, but just the lack of personal control in what is largely a Boolean experience. Once an aircraft is flying, it is either flying or it is falling, (arguably it could be both) and just being along for the ride is disconcerting to me.

Now, I realize that this is a completely irrational fear, (probably too strong of a word) in the face of probability and statistical analysis, but it is something and it is enough that it can’t generally be ignored. To be clear, though, I wouldn’t say that this discomfort is anything remotely crippling or even something more than perhaps a “concern,” but it is something from which I like to distract myself. There are the standby distractions like listening to music, watching movies, etc. which all help, but at the end of the day one of the things that I find most effective is is to embrace the fact that I am flying. While I might have a lingering fear of flying, I simultaneously am thrilled by the fact that I am flying — and one of the best ways to make an uncomfortable experience better is to simply embrace it. Window seats help me with that.

One of the things that I love about flying with a window seat is that the world takes on a completely new perspective. At night, cities become constellations of light. When visible, towering mountainous ranges become smooth contours on an otherwise flat surface. This perspective doesn’t always help me feel less irrationally concerned — for the obvious fact that if the plane stopped flying, the fall would be huge — but it does help me get a sense for how grand and wonderful the world is. I like the idea that the simple act of flying opens me up to larger perspectives that are greater than my community, my family, and even my own personal feelings.

Honestly, I may never fly without some level of concern, but in an age where the flow of information is constant, opinions are passed off as fact, and perspectives shrink to the walls around us, I find comfort in what flying does provide me along the way…feeling that the world is still huge and I am just a mere piece of it.

WASTHINGTON D.C. & EAST COAST - X-T1 & 35mm

Michael Lesher 2/3/16 Michael Lesher 2/3/16

Street Photography & Mardi Gras

Last week I was invited to take part in an event in New Orleans, which I was thrilled to do. The thing that was interesting to me - besides the content of the event - was that the choice of location and timeframe coincided with Mardi Gras. Since I had never experienced Mardi Gras before, it sounded like a great opportunity to try out some street photography techniques.

Last week I was invited to take part in an event in New Orleans, which I was thrilled to do. The thing that was interesting to me - besides the content of the event - was the choice of location and timeframe coinciding with Mardi Gras. Since I had never experienced Mardi Gras before, it sounded like a great opportunity to try out some street photography techniques.

Let me start by saying that I don’t really consider myself a street photographer. If you read this blog or follow me on Instagram, you would likely have noticed that I spend most of my time shooting landscapes, architecture, lifestyle and events. That said, I was really interested in trying my hand at some street photography and I felt relatively confident because what is Mardi Gras other than a massive lifestyle event that occurs on the street? How hard could it be, right?

So, with that in mind, I set forth to New Orleans with camera in hand. Ready to capture whatever seemed interesting. I think that the photos turned out OK and hope you agree. Definitely let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

FUJIFILM X-T1 w/35mm f/2 & 10-24mm f/4