Michaelarm 

4 creative works found

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  My Secret Spot
  by Michael J Armijo

  MY SECRET SPOT-Many think that Los Angeles, California is filled with traffic and cars; however, I know of several unique spots. This IS one of my favorites. I’ll never tell you where it is-unless you come to L.A…then if you’re nice…we can go to a picnic here. Do you want to go?

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  Shadow and Light
  by Michael J Armijo

  Here is a random and spontaneous photo I took of an orchid next to a window. The natural sunlight was on my side. I liked the delicacy of the composition.

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  A Fresh Cup
  by Michael J Armijo

  Simply a cup of coffee that I thought looked beautiful. / As a “postcard” it would be ideal to invite someone out for coffee & ‘catching up’ chit-chat. :)

• An Interview to Meet Sue Anne!
  by Patricia Montgomery

  As a member of RB’s Share The Love mission, t…

  As a member of RB’s Share The Love mission, this is the 4th in a series of interviews to introduce you to another talented artist in the Redbubble community. One of the many fabulous things about Redbubble is the fact that a small-town farm girl/photographer (me) from the east coast could meet and make friends with another photographer on the west coast! We met on RB over a photo taken on Route 66. We both had been to the same location, taken the same image, but at different times. Sue Anne has such a warm personality that it seems as though we have been friends forever. She is a lovely person – inside and out – with tremendous photographic talent. It was a blessing to meet her here and an honor to interview her. Here are some of my favorite examples of her work but be sure to pop over to Sue Anne’s profile and take a closer look at her gallery. Now it is time for “Sue Anne” to talk! MEET SUE ANNE: 1. What drew you here to the Redbubble community? A dear friend, MichaelJArmijo, whom I met a few years back on TPW. He sent me an e-mail on day after I had not heard from him in quite some time. He was introducing me to new sites which led me to this site. So many thanks to Michael for introducing me to Redbubble. 2. How does your creative affect other aspects of your life? I would like to think of myself as a giver more than a taker, so by being able to be creative in my photography I am able to give the gift of smiles to those who enjoy my work. I love being a Pre School photographer and capturing every child’s very own expression, smile, shyness and even sometimes sadness. I have always had a very big heart where children are concerned and this is just one of many ways for me to share in the joy I get when being with them. Next; I love to sit for hours upon hours at my computer and play with photos I have taken. Sometimes I will lose all track of time and even forget to go to bed. I have been known to spend several hours on a single photo that I know I’m probably not even going to use somewhere, just to see if I can make it look as I had intended it to appear when I started my project. / / 3. How many Mediums do you work in? Which is your favorite, and why? Wow this is a tuff one, but probably one of the most important ones too. So let’s see… 1.. Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album 5: I have been using this program for so many years I think it has just become a comfortable habit for my downloading photos into my computer and moving them around from one file to another easily. The second reason would be it is the program I have used for the proof sheets that I use in my photography business. It gives me the tools I need and have used for over 10 years and old habits are hard to break. 2. Corel Painter X This is used for the obvious reasons. I use this on the photos I want to give a painted look. 3. Micrografx Picture Publisher 10 I find this program easy to use when doing my selective coloring and helping me map out just the right spots I am using. 4. Photomatix Pro 3.0 I use this for all my HDR work. 5. Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 I use this program 90% of the time I am doing any and most editing to my photos. I am a 100% self taught photographer and editor of my photographs. This is my third upgrade to this program and probably not my last.. When first starting out 10 years ago I just couldn’t get Photo Shop and wanted to just give up all together. I ran into a problem with one of the schools I had photographed back about 8 yrs ago and a friend of a friend came over to see if they could help me restore them as much as possible.. Well he save the day and introduced me to this program and I also discovered that it does most everything that Photo Shop does, just maps it out for me a lot better. 6. I use a Nikon D200 and a Nikon D40x I love the Nikon D40x because it is so light and easy to carry if I am going to be out for a while. I have two lenses for it one is a Nikon DX 18-70 mm; the other is a telephoto lens. I loaned it out to my husband’s son to use while on vacation and can’t remember what it is off hand. / The Nikon D200 I have so many lens my husband has bought and resold and bought and resold, I don’t really know what we have anymore. The one I do know is my Nikon AF 28-105 Macro. 4. What subjects do you enjoy the most in your work? Oh another hard question, I think maybe my web page says it best. Children’s Portraits; because every child’s smile is contagious, and every / child brings something new to every photograph. / Landscapes; because no two are alike, each one differs / in their color and their range of beauty. / Nature; because it can take something new and make it old, it can take something small and make it grow, it can change the color of our world. / Wildlife; for the love of all animals and how each one contributes differently to nature. / Architecture; because there are many shapes & views to each one. 5. Tell us about one person or moment that has made your time on redbubble particularly special or meaningful? Well there are so many people that have made my time here at redbubble special so this is a hard one. So I will go back to when I first started RB and thank AtrejuHood who introduced me to the world of HDR. This has taken me to a whole new place in my photography. And of course my dear friend, Patricia Montgomery. Pat is someone that I feel very blessed to have met and I now think of not just a friend on redbubble but a friend and pen pal for life. Pat and I met one day on redbubble when she submitted a photo of a car in a museum that she had taken while on a recent road trip with her husband. I had just traveled to that same museum less than 6 months prior to that and had taken a picture of that same car. I thought to myself, what were the odds of two people whom live 1000 of miles apart and traveling to the same place and then posting the same picture on such a large site at all most the same time. Why, because we were meant to meet and become friends. 6. Show & tell: What three works or people on Redbubble have moved or inspired you? Oh my there are so many, let’s see three huh… Well the first one really is an easy one for me….. His name is Jason Connolly his work amazes me more and more every time he posts a new picture. I really enjoy the treatments he uses on them and the composition is always remarkable. I hope all of you will check out his portfolio, if you haven’t done so already. As for my favorite pictures of his, that’s a hard one because there are so so many. How about I pick two and you can see the rest for yourselves. Sunset Wreck / and The Little Girl Along The Lane Second would be: SunshowerPlay by Annette Blattman. I have loved this photo from the moment I laid my eyes on it. It is a perfect portrait of my two grandsons as if I had taken it. And Third would be: *Have A Drink On Me by NewDawnPhoto. This photo has amazed me ever since I first saw it, for them to have caught this hummingbird drinking out of that running spout is just to amazing to me. / . And one more, I love this photo by Patricia Montgomery. I think it is just a beautiful piece of work and one she should be very proud of. Come on in. Sit a spell. 7. What goals do you have for your work outside of Redbubble? I would love to open up a studio again; I really enjoy doing boudoir and would love to start photographing nudes. Another dream I have for photography would be to live somewhere I could turn my backyard into a mini outdoor vintage studio. I have dreamed of this for so long, I already have it mapped out in my mind and know just how I want to be. This next one I’m not sure if you would call it a goal but more a dream… I have dream to go on an expedition with a group as their photographer to visit a location that has needy children in a country where opportunities do not exist. And to be a part in the joy of sharing with these children things they have never had the blessing to have in their life. To share in the smiles on their faces as they are given a chance for the gift of a better life, than ever thought possible to them. / My joy would be bringing home this wonderful experience and sharing it through my photographs. / / 8. Now for fun, can you tell one thing about yourself that might surprise us? / / 1. I would love to travel the United States on the back of a Harley, and sleep outside under the stars. 2. Is a story I would like to share with all of you….. When I was younger I was VERY SHY and wouldn’t even look at someone in the face when speaking to them. I grew up being teased about something I had no control over and it broke down my sprit as a child and young adult. I met someone in my young adult life that saw this broken sprit of mine and walked me through the necessary steps to fix this monster I had carried with me as a child and young adult. Breaking free of this monster changed my whole life. It gave me the confidence I had always seen in others, but dreamed about having. I think having this monster inside me as a child is one of the many reasons I enjoy photography as I do. Because I am able to see all sides of every photograph, and make it into something beautiful that others don’t see. As this is how I had always hope people would see me. This monster I carried with me for so many years, I did not bury but try to put it to good use whenever I can and hope that I can change the spirit of someone’s life as that very special person did for me. I know you all are wondering what this monster could have been to break someone’s sprit so, well to most it will seem so small but this is my point, think before you act and even before you speak as something so small to you could make a lasting effect on someone’s life forever. My monster was a very large nose I inherited from my mother. I always had a very tiny face and a large nose. My dream as a child was to have someone look at me and see me before they saw my nose. Well my dream did come true and I see myself as one of the lucky ones. But I ask all of you to think before you act or even speak to spare that next broken sprit of even feeling half the pain that I did. As most broken sprits never get to live their dream as I have. / / I want to thank Pat for asking me to do this interview, for it has opened my eyes to many things in my life that I had either forgotten about or had just taken for granted as I had promised myself I would never do. So thank you for reopening my eyes to the many beautiful things around me that I had forgotten to stop and take notice of.