News

.... and other information can also be found on my BLOG.

I am happy to announce the long-delayed release of my new DESERT folio! Twelve of my DESERT photographs are available in this beautiful and affordably-priced 11x14" collector’s folio. Enjoy a special introductory price through August 21, 2010. For more information...

Come join me on an amazing backpack photography tour of the eastern High Sierra on August 25- 29, 2010! For more information...

I’d love to meet you and share my work with you at The La Jolla Festival of the Arts on June 26-27, 2010. This Festival is among the top rated art shows in California and hosts over 190 award-winning local and national artists displaying fine art photography, watercolors, oils, sculpture, serigraphs, fine jewelry, and more. More information.

I’m excited to announce that four photographs from my Desert series and a statement on this work are featured in the April/May 2010 issue of View Camera magazine. This publication is concurrent with the ’4×5′ exhibition at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, which opened on April 3 and runs through May 23, 2010.

Michael photographed a real estate marketing campaign for cellular giant T-Mobile.

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) commissioned me to curate, print, and frame a wonderful exhibition entitled Tortoises Through the Lens. A community based conservation action project, Tortoises Through the Lens, works to educate and empower local high school students to learn about conservation through photography in the Mojave Desert. From May 2 through August 7, 2010, the NPCA will feature a Tortoises Through the Lens photography exhibition that displays landscape, wildlife, and macro photography at the Desert Light Art Gallery inside the Historic Kelso Depot at Mojave National Preserve. Exhibit hours are 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily.

Landscapes: Unfeigned or Illusory opens on Friday, April 23, at the Mpls Photo Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and features the work of 64 photographers (myself included!). I’m proud to announce that two of my photographs – Drivers Wanted and The American Dream – were selected for this exhibition from over 2400 photographs by 400 photographers from seventeen countries.

The Four by Five exhibition opens at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery on April 3, 2010. Steve Simmons, publisher of View Camera Magazine, juried and curated this exhibition, and it goes without saying that I’m proud to be one of five featured artists whose work “showcase[s] the creative and varied contemporary work being done with large format view cameras”.

You're invited to the 24th Annual Southwest Arts Festival in Indio, California (just east of Palm Springs)! One of the region’s most acclaimed fine art festivals, Michael will be exhibiting upwards of twenty large framed pieces, including a few new photographs that will be exhibited for the very first time. The festival opens to the public on Friday, January 29 at 10am, and closes on January 31 at 5:30pm. For more information, please visit the Southwest Arts Festival website. I hope to see you there!

My official and proposed (still under development) 2010 Workshops/Tours can be found here.

Workshop Announcement: Introduction to Large Format Photography. Feb 13-14, 2010. Alabama Hills, California (in the shadow of Mt. Whitney). For more information and to register...

Michael's photograph Calligraphy was selected for the The Art of Nature group exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Denver, Colorado. Calligraphy was selected from over 1700 submissions, and will be on exhibit from December 4, 2009 through January 9, 2010.

Michael received three Honorable Mentions in the 2009 International Photography Awards: Joshua Trees (series); Remarkable Trees (series); and Drivers Wanted. The 2009 IPA Winners and Honorable Mentions can be viewed here.

Michael's photograph The American Dream was selected for the The Art of Photography Today group exhibition at the Camera Obscura Gallery in Denver, Colorado. The American Dream was selected from amongst 300 photographers and 1,399 entries, and will be on exhibit from September 18 through October 24, 2009.

Michael will present 'The Beauty of Wild Places' to the West L.A. group of the Sierra Club (non-members welcome!). Michael will show his fine art photographs from and discuss the character and features of his favorite wild places in California. For more information...

There is perhaps no greater challenge for a photographer than finding their own creative voice and developing a recognizable personal style. This workshop aims to help both experienced and aspiring fine-art photographers develop creative skills and techniques in the field and in the digital studio.

For more information and to register, please see the Gordon-Tal Photographic Workshops website.

Michael's photograph Joshua Trees, Indian Summer Sky was juried into the international Black & White exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography. The exhibition will run from August 28 through September 26, 2009 at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado. Michael's photograph was one of 51 selected from 2200 entries.

Michael will be teaching an Introduction to Large Format Photography class on the weekend of August 1-2, 2009, in the beautiful Eastern Sierra. If you’re curious about the format, or already own the camera but aren’t sure that you’re using it correctly, this workshop is intended for you! At the completion of this intensive two-day workshop, you will be able to competently and efficiently compose, focus, and expose your own photographs with a large format view camera. Limited to only four photographers. Act now to ensure your spot at this workshop. For more information and to register...

All photographs on this website are now available as 8" Mini-Prints. All rectangular/panoramic photographs are printed to 8" on the their longest side, and square images are printed to 6" on their longest side. Open Edition Mini-Prints are hand-signed and made using the same top-quality archival materials as my Limited Edition prints, and all come mounted/matted and ready to be inserted into off-the-shelf 11x14" frames. Best of all, they're an outstanding value at only $50 each. To purchase, select any photograph, click the "purchase a print" link found beneath it, and select the 8" Mini-Print option. Please be sure to add the $1 mounting/overmatting "Display Option" to your print selection.

Michael is proud to announce the release of twenty-eight new photographs. Please see the New Work portfolio to view them.

Michael's photograph Burned Pinyon Pines in Fog was juried by René de Guzman (Senior Art Curator at the Oakland Museum of California) into the international juried exhibition Glimpses in Time: 2009. This marks the second year in a row that Michael's work has been accepted into this exhibition. The exhibition will run from July 3 through July 31, 2009 at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland, California.

Additionally, two of Michael's photographs (American Dream II; Alpine Sunrise) were nominees (in the Architecture and Nature categories) in the 3rd Annual Photography Masters Cup/International Color Awards. You can view his nominations (and the winners) here and here. Thousands of images from 92 countries competed for nominations and awards.

I will be showing a small collection of framed prints at the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour on Wednesday, March 25 2009, 7:00pm at Clock Auditorium, Redlands High School in Redlands, California (near San Bernardino). The Banff Film Festival promises an evening of action-packed mountain adventure and mountain culture films that entertains and enthralls audiences year after year (see this year's trailer on YouTube. The proceeds from this evening benefit the hosts, the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association (SGWA). The SGWA helps to protect and preserve the San Gorgonio Wilderness (a near and dear Wilderness where I have made many photographs over the years) and San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California. If you're near Redlands, California, I hope you'll come out to say hello and watch an evening of great mountain films with me next Wednesday. To purchase tickets online (only $10 each) or for more information, please see the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association website. I hope to see you there!

I am now offering a service for photographers and digital printmakers: Custom RGB Printer/Paper Profiles. Custom profiles provide several benefits, including accurate color reproduction, smoother tonal transitions, neutral grays, and improved shadow and highlight details. My custom profiles are optimized for your specific printer, ink, and paper combination and will help you get the most out of your printer and paper. At only $25 each, you cannot afford not to have a custom profile for each paper/printer combination you use. CLICK HERE for more information and to order custom profiles for your printer and paper.

My photograph Untitled has been juried by Brooks Jensen (of the beautiful LensWork publication) into the Negative Space exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado. The exhibition will run at The Center from January 9 through February 7, 2009.

My photograph Calligraphy will be in the collectible group exhibit at wall space gallery in Seattle from 11 November through 31 December, 2008. Please see the wall space gallery website for more details.

Yosemite Renaissance XXIII is now on the final leg of it’s nearly year-long tour and will be on view November 10 through December 31 in the Turlock City Gallery, Turlock City Hall. Contact the Turlock City Arts Commission at 668-5599, x4615 for more information. My photograph of Bridalveil Falls received an Honorable Mention in Yosemite Renaissance XXIII, and can be viewed at Turlock City Hall through December 31.

Joe Johnson of the Hanford Sentinel (a central California newspaper near Yosemite) recently interviewed me for an in-depth article that heralded the annual return of the Yosemite Renaissance exhibit to the King’s Art Center in Hanford, California. Although you won’t be able to see the large reproduction of my Bridalveil Falls photograph, the article is available on the Sentinel website for your reading pleasure.

I am happy to announce that several of my photographs have recently received awards and recognition in international competitions:

*3rd Place, Nature:Trees, Prix de la Photographie, Paris. 2008;

*Finalist, 28th Annual Photographer’s Forum Spring Photography Contest (2008);

*Honorable Mention; Trees; 2008 International Photographer of the Year Awards (22,000 entries from 124 countries).

My photographs Drivers Wanted and The American Dream were juried by renowned San Francisco gallerist Stephen Wirtz into the Glimpses in Time exhibition at the Joyce Gordon Gallery. My photographs were selected from over 350 images from nine countries and twenty-nine U.S. states.

I am excited to announce that my 'Extraordinary Trees' series took 3rd Place in the 'Trees' category in the prestigious 2008 Prix de la Photographie, Paris competition. Px3 is juried by top international decision-makers in the photography industry, who selected 2008’s winners from thousands of photography entries from over 85 countries. You can find my winning series here.

The "Prix de la Photographie, Paris" (Px3) strives to promote the appreciation of photography, to discover emerging talent, and introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community of Paris. Winning entries from each major category are exhibited in Paris at the prestigious Galerie Acte 2 from June 26-28 and published in the high-quality, full-color Px3 Annual Book, which is distributed to galleries, agencies, publishers and bookstores worldwide.

I’m delighted to announce that my photograph of Bridalveil Falls received Honorable Mention in Yosemite Renaissance XXIII. This 24th annual juried exhibit received in 2008 close to 500 entries, yet only thirty-four artists were selected to exhibit. It's a great honor to have my photograph exhibited in Yosemite Valley along with so many other superb interpretations of the incomparable Yosemite.

This exhibit will remain on display at the Yosemite Museum Gallery from through May 2008. Be sure to swing by after your visit to the Ansel Adams Gallery (just next door).

Broughton Quarterly features an interview with Michael in their Winter 2007/2008 issue. Six of Michael's photographs are published alongside the interview, including the cover and a two-page spread. You can see the photographs and read the interview here.