10/18/2024
Carpe Luminous Photography
& Michael Riley
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I'm Michael of Carpe Luminous Photography and I shoot in a wide variety of photographic genres.
I have been a photographer for most of my life, starting out with a Kodak Brownie of some type then moving on to various similar film cameras. By the time I hit high school, I had acquired a Pentax K1000 and a couple of basic lenses. It wasn't long before I built my first darkroom under the stairs to the basement in my mother and stepfather's house. After heading off to college, I settled into the Arts Department with a concentration on Photography working as a staff photographer for both the Yearbook and the school paper. The summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years, I worked at the largest photography store in Knoxville, TN doing B&W darkroom work and delivering supplies to city customers. By my late Sophomore year, I was scheming with the Chairmen of the Art Dept to design and establish a "Photography Bachelor of Art" program, which was approved the winter of my junior year, and I became the first registered student. The following spring, I also got a part-time job at a small photography studio in Knoxville which specialized in school photography and portraiture. I learned a lots there, but unfortunately, the recession of 1976 hit the studio hard and, other than the occasional wedding assignment, I lost even the reliable part-time income. By the end of the 1st semester of my Senior year, I was totally broke and unable to continue with the last couple of classes I needed to graduate. I was engaged at the time as well, and with few other options, I agreed to enlist in the Air Force, hoping for an assignment as a photographer. Instead, the Air Force made me a Computer Operator, specializing in the large mainframe computers of the day. My fiancée and I got married before I headed to Basic Training and once at my first assignment, did well, advancing steadily, but it was almost 3 years before I was able to get back to college to finish my degree.
I did manage to continue my photography throughout and continued to improve my skills. By this time, I had transitioned to a Pentax MX. Over the next stretch of years, I continued shooting, taking advantage of the various postings to expand and practice my photography, working freelance assignments and a couple of weddings a year. Halfway through my Air Force career, I found myself with less and less time to shoot, between the family and my increasingly complex computer duties and assignments.
As digital cameras became common and affordable I bought a couple of different point and shoot style cameras, the DSLRs of the time being of low quality and of outrageous price. It was not until a year after I retired from the Air Force that I received a Pentax K110D from my daughter, who worked at Ritz Camera at the time.. This reignited my love of photography and I began shooting voraciously. By then, thanks to a far more lucrative career as a Systems Specialist Contractor for the federal government, I rapidly upgraded, first to a Pentax K10D and then a K20D. So why Pentax you might ask? Well, I always remembered the way the old Pentax cameras felt and worked, and the new ones seemed to continue that aspect. It also enabled me to continue to use the fairly large collection of full-frame K-mount lenses I owned. Win-win!
By 2011 I had acquired a nice set of premium Pentax lenses and by late 2010 moved up to the Pentax K-5, which I still use. It is a beautiful camera that is very easy to use and always delivers. I've taken 10s of thousands of photos with it in just about every genre of photography you can imagine. As before, family and job requirements have kept me from pursuing photography as more than a freelance, though I have done the occasional wedding over the years and have worked for commercial clients on numerous occasions. My main personal activity has been concentrated in a couple of genres, military aircraft (airshows mostly), motorsports (motorcycle racing), velosports (bicycle racing), landscapes, birds, and finally figure photography.
To wrap this up, I recently retired from federal contracting and am in the process of reinvigorating my photography. I treated myself to a new Pentax K-3 III as a retirement present, and have my eye set on one of the new Pentax K1-II full-frame DSLRs, continuing my life-long relationship with Pentax.
This new site is a collection of some of my best or most memorable photos of the last two decades. I hope you like them and that you find some which spark your joy.
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I am most at peace with my camera in my hand in nature, whether it be an isolated microcosm in a large city, or the most remote pristine wilderness.
See more at www.carpeluminous.com
