I know, I know... it's been way too long since I've posted! Let me tell you what I've been up to. I finished catching up on client orders and decided to celebrate by going surfing last Thursday during a pretty significant swell. I went to a secret spot that is supposed to be really good during a big swell. I was in the water shortly after sunrise with my friends Ben and Joel. I caught a few waves and was starting to have fun. Then, just after kicking out after riding this one wave, I was under water and my board came along and cracked me in the head. I ended up with a nice gash that needed some stitches. I was taken care of at a local walk-in clinic and made it out of there just in time for a meeting with a bride at my office. Luckily I have a shower at my office so I could rinse all the blood out of my wetsuit and get cleaned up before the meeting. Now get this... in the middle of my meeting I felt some warm liquid running down my neck and behind my ear. I excused myself to the restroom to find that my head was bleeding all over and I had like 3 streams of blood coming down through my hair. Just like MacGyver I used hairspray and stick of gum to fix the situation and continued with my meeting.

So you're thinking... Mike, that's a pretty rough day. It gets worse... I was in a second meeting with another bride and I get a phone call from my wife at home telling me that my son Aidan just fell down the stairs! He seemed to be ok other than some scratches and bumps, but my wife was pretty much traumatized and I had to cut my meeting short to go home. Thank God he's ok! What a day! So the Colón boys were locked in a Nerf room for a few days and that's why I took so long to post.

I found out from my accountant just a few days ago that I owe waaaay more than I thought in taxes this year. She said I need to either dump a ton of money into my pension plan, buy some equipment, or buy a new SUV. So I bought an SUV (see photo above). I'm a sucker for a good excuse to spend money on things with 4 wheel drive. Especially when snowboarding season is starting up! So, I guess to make this legal, I'm going back to shooting extreme sports in the mountains. I need to ask my accountant if I can write off a new snowboard this year too! I think I might go up to Big White in B.C. to hang with Gary Fong in his ski in/ski out chalets! Hmmm.. can I write that off too? I hope the IRS doesn't read blogs! Well, I'm sure there is a good reason to do some photo reconnaissancee work up in British Columbia on my new snowboard and so it's 100% legitimate right? I think Nikon is making a digital wifi helmet cam for just this type of work! (I should clarify that I'm joking about this stuff so I don't lead anyone astray - I am a firm believer in keeping everything 100% legit in my business, and that includes paying taxes. I know that God's blessing has been on my business because I do my best to honor Him in every decision I make.)

Oh yeah.. I switched the dates on my March workshop to the 20-23 and there are 12 seats left. So if you were wanting to do my workshop and go to WPPI, now there's some room to relax in between!

Happy New Year Everyone!! May God richly bless you, your family, and your business in 2006!

Mike

p.s. I forgot to tell you that my brave wife took my stitches all by herself last night and it didn't even hurt! What a great wife!

We have a winner of the magazine game I started on my last post. Jim Cook, a photographer from Georgetown, Kentucky got two of the magazines correct. Congrats Jim! I sent out Jim's gift today - a brand new Tamrac MX-S5369. It's not just a CF card wallet... It's the best thing out for the digital wedding photographer! Seriously, before I owned one of these things, I was living in the ghetto years, keeping my CF cards in my pockets. You should see the wear and tear I put on those poor cards! I had to say "enough is enough! I'm buying my cards a new home!" Now my CF cards travel in style.

The correct answer to the question in my last post about the magazine covers is: Wedding Style, Marriage, and Ceremony.

This image was taken in New York City while on assignment for Grace Ormonde. Riva Mivasagar designed this very unique gown. It was getting really dark and I only had about 10 minutes of light left but that was the look I wanted. I'm coining a new term for this look and it's "Trashy Chic" ha ha! This image was one of my favorites despite the fact it was one of my test shots and was about 1.5 stops underexposed. I pulled it up using exposure, brightness, and curves in Photoshop's RAW image processor and spent some time smoothing out some of the noise on her face with the healing brush. I considered changing this to black and white to go for that intentional grainy look of an old favorite film (Kodak TMZ), but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I loved the color tones so much. Here are the specs on the image:

camera: Nikon D2x
lens: 70-200mm 2.8 VR
focal length: 80mm
aperture: 2.8
shutter: 1/125 sec
mode: Aperture Priority
exposure compensation: -0.3 stop (like I said.. it was a test shot - this should have been at +1.0)
metering mode: Pattern/Matrix
image quality: RAW

So chances are... if I finish all of my homework (editing) I will get to go play (surf) on Thursday morning. There is a strong west/northwest swell coming in that should bring some pretty nice 10-15 ft waves! Check the surf report!

My son LOVES bananas! I'm serious.. if you mention the word banana to him, he will not stop saying "nana, nana, nana" until he gets a banana! It's so cute! Here's a little sequence shot I took of him with my mini Nikon S2. It has a black & white, 16 image per frame mode. It's fun because you have to just press it and try to keep little monkey Aidan in the frame. It reminds me of taking pictures in a photo booth. You have no control and you just get whatever comes out.

Well, since my Newport Beach Workshop sold out so quickly and a lot of people keep emailing me asking me to do another one, I'm considering adding a second workshop in March. If anyone is interested, send me an email and you'll be the first to know when I release the seats on MikeColon.Net. My DVD's also just went on sale for $199 for Christmas (expires 12/31/05). If you've purchased my DVD at full price in the last 7 days, send me an email and I'll refund the difference to you.

Oh yeah, and I'm super excited because I got the covers of 3 different magazines that come out in January 2006! So how about a little game? The first person to send me an email guessing at least 2 of the 3 magazines will get a special gift in the mail from me. Make sure to include your address in the email.

Happy holidays everyone! Don't work too hard this week... unless you have a zillion things that need to get done before Christmas like me!

Mike

So I was reading a book today that my good friend Jeff Jochum recommended called The Tipping Point and the author Malcolm Gladwell had a very interesting point. He talked about how after studying his circle of friends closely to figure out how they all became connected, he realized that it wasn't a circle of friends after all. It was a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid was his friend Jacob who was responsible for an overwhelming majority of relationships that he had in his life. He realized that not only was his social circle not a circle, but it was also not even "his". It was more of a club that his friend Jacob invited him into.

It's interesting to think that our world is brought together by actually a very small number of what Malcolm calls "connectors". Connectors are like skeleton keys that can open practically any door they wish. If you need a door opened, your first stop should be the house of a connector you've become friends with. If you don't know a connector in your industry, I recommend making a conscious effort to meet one very soon. Workshops, Conventions, and Industry parties/gatherings are all great places to meet connectors. People who are successful in what they do are either connectors themselves, or they are very good at staying close to other connectors. I love how Pictage, my lab/entire back office, is so involved in helping their clients connect with industry leaders and connectors. If you did not attend the Pictage Partner Conference this year, make sure you go next year. There was quite a collection of industry connectors in attendance.

Here is some technical info on the image above which I took at a recent fashion editorial shoot: Lens: 200mm 2.0 AF-S VR shot wide open
Camera: Nikon D2x set to Aperture Priority
Image quality: JPEG Fine - Optimal Quality
Focus mode: Dynamic Continuous
White Balance: Shade
Photoshop Enhancement: Changed to black and white using Kevin Kubota's "BW GM warm 1 + snappy" action in his Artistic Pak 1. I then used curves to brighten her face a bit.

Remember to set regular hours to work and even more regular hours to spend with your family! If your family life is healthy, your business life will succeed naturally.

Ok.. so I might just open up the workshop to a few more photographers since people are twisting my arm. I think we should max it at 20 to keep the intimacy and high quality learning experience. Let me know your thoughts. If this happens, keep an eye out tomorrow (Friday) for the release of 5 more seats. It's first come, first serve to be fair to everyone! Those of you who contacted me for the waiting list will be notified via email when it goes live.

Here are a few shots I retouched for Grace Ormonde for her 2006 magazine. I took these in front of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. It's a funny story... I was up in the hotel suite of Ines DiSanto for her annual market week runway show and I got this brilliant idea! Since Grace was standing there talking to Ines, I walked up and took a chance. I said, "Hey.. why don't we take one or two of these gorgeous models down the street for some shots? The light is perfect and we'll get some great stuff for editorial!" Grace looked at me like I was crazy and Ines just looked puzzled and confused. Grace said "Are you thinking straight? If we do that with Ines, we have to do it with every designer and they're not going to go for that." So I said "Ok, so we make the offer to everyone and if they say no.. it's their loss right?" and this was the closer... "And who cares anyway Grace... you're the boss right?"

So I ran back to my hotel room and grabbed my favorite 5 lb lens (200mm 2.0) that I lugged carry-on with me for just an occasion like this and met the models in front of the hotel for the shoot. I had about 15 minutes with them and it was so much fun. Of course we drew a crowd of spectators on the street and a few wannabe paparazzis showed up, which made it even more fun! So the moral of the story is... It doesn't hurt to ask!

Here's some techy info on the shoot:
Lens: 200mm 2.0 AF-S VR shot wide open
Camera: Nikon D2x set to Aperture Priority
Image quality: RAW uncompressed
Focus mode: Dynamic Continuous
White Balance: Auto
Photoshop Enhancement: Changed to black and white by taking down the saturation in the Photoshop RAW image processor, also used the image processor contrast, vignetting, and curves before opening in Photoshop. Applied some more dodging and burning in Photoshop and minor cropping.

God Bless!
Mike

P.S. Stop and thank God for 10 things good in your life... and then thank Him for something that didn't go wrong that could have!

It's 1:15am and I'm back at home after a long day. I got home from the office extremely late last night so I slept in this morning. I spent the rest of the morning working on stuff from home and making calls. Around 2pm I checked the status of my Workshop on my .net site admin panel and to my surprise all but 2 seats had been sold! Thanks to David Jay and the OSP forum, my workshop sold out in less than 48 hours after it was formally released! It was a wonderful surprise! If you were planning on signing up for the workshop the good news is there are still some seats left for my Workshop at the Brooks Institute of Photography.

Around 2:30pm I jumped on the freeway heading out to Marina Del Rey for my good friend Gary Fong's birthday party. I'm sure all of you know Gary because he is a genius wedding photographer who has done amazing things in our industry. Well, I barely made it (lots of traffic) to the marina before the party left on Gary's new yacht for our little sunset cruise up the coast. It was so much fun! Afterwards we went to dinner at Shanghai Reds right in the marina. Check out the group shot from dinner above!

This image from a wedding I shot at Clos La Chance Winery in San Martin this summer paints a pretty good picture of how I see my business life. It's like I'm climbing and each step brings me closer to a bright light that marks the accomplishment of my goals in business. It symbolizes success, relaxation, and satisfaction. The weird thing is... it seems that just as I get closer to the light.. it moves outward and there are a dozen or so more stairs to climb. I guess I could learn a lesson from whoever said it was wise to stop and smell the flowers. There's more satisfaction in smelling flowers than chasing some goal that keeps evolving into something more challenging and difficult to accomplish. Part of me thinks it's healthy to always set new higher goals. The other part wonders if it's a distraction from God's real purpose for me.

We sent out an email blast last night around 8:30pm announcing the launch of MikeColon.Net. It was very exciting watching the numbers on the blast report! The blast went to over 2500 of my contacts. So far about 1000 have opened the email. I've been getting emails from people I haven't connected with in a while and it's great to catch up. I think it's important to mention (for those of you who emailed me within the last 3 months and still have not received a response) that I plan on responding to the emails that I've been forced to neglect a bit in order to focus on this project. I know it seems lame to get an impersonal email from me when you were expecting a personal one. Please forgive me. I'll be in touch personally as soon as possible.

It's Friday and I've been at my studio all day working. I didn't even step out for lunch today now that I think about it! I'm actually heading out right now for my brother-in-law's birthday poker party in Ladera Ranch. It's about 30 minutes if traffic isn't too bad (which it will be!). My wife and son (above) will be spending the evening with Grandma and Grandpa since I'll be gone until late tonight. I'm going surfing in the morning... most likely at Blackies by the Newport Pier. I'll call the surfline in the morning to see where the waves are peaking. It's not every Saturday that I get to go surfing because of weddings, but it's nice once in a while because most of my friends can go too. I work way to much and surfing helps me slow down and appreciate life! I can't wait to get Aidan out there on the waves with me! Julie can watch from the beach since she's not into cold salt water. Gotta run! I'll pick up here on Monday! Have a great weekend! Happy shooting to those of you with weddings! Peace. Mike

Hi and welcome to my brand new web journal. This is my first post and I'm so glad you stopped by to check it out! I picked this image of my son Aidan and I because I thought he looked especially cute in it. It was taken by my assistant Kristin in Lana'i the morning before a wedding. I flew my wife and son out there to stay with me because I missed them too much. I'll have to post an image of my wife tomorrow so she doesn't feel left out.

Well, today is pretty much an average day for me... except for the fact that I've been working from home all morning. I woke up this morning to Christmas music and my son bringing me his favorite book to read to him. I just had to stay home this morning.

I'm going to attempt to put together a web blast to announce my new .net site and formally introduce my new .com site even though it's been online for a few months. I need to retouch a headshot I took of an event planner and friend of mine which will be going into Ceremony Magazine next to her bio. I have 3 weddings to edit so I'll most likely get through one before I head out to sushi at Wasa across the street and then head to my softball game in Huntington Beach.

That's it for now... please check back tomorrow for more images and rambling :)

Remember to appreciate what you have and to view any trials in your life as a blessing that will help you grow and gain in wisdom!

God Bless!
Mike