Going to Church, Photographing LAX
Mike Kelley Blog
by TDC
2y ago
Beauty is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of Los Angeles International Airport. Most often the first word you’re going to think of is explicit, four letters long, and is immediately followed by the mental gymnastics that one must perform when they figure out the optimal time to leave in order to beat 405 traffic while not getting stuck in 10 traffic but at the same time approaching the airport so as to dodge Century Blvd traffic. Need I mention the loop, or the low-roofed ceilings, or overpriced airport food (hey, it’s getting better!), jammed TSA lines, etc. It’s an airp ..read more
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On Assignment with Arquitectonica
Mike Kelley Blog
by TDC
2y ago
Over the past few months, I’ve had the good fortune to photograph roughly 35 projects by Arquitectonica, the Miami, Florida, based architecture firm known for iconic projects such as American Airlines Area, Brickell City Centre, the Lima Airport, Atlantis Miami (Hello, Miami Vice!) and many more. Arquitectonica has projects across the entire US and around the globe, so when the call came through that I’d been hired to document their most recent projects in the US I was absolutely psyched. This was without question one of the most physically and mentally demanding things that I’ve ever done. Th ..read more
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Photographing Brickell City Centre in Miami, FL
Mike Kelley Blog
by TDC
2y ago
Over the last six months I’ve been traveling regularly to Miami, FL, to photograph the new Brickell City Centre development. Spanning over six acres spread across five city blocks, the project is absolutely enormous in scale. With multiple high-rise office buildings, residential buildings, hotels, and an open-air mall with retail and dining space, there is no shortage of amazing subject matter for any architectural photographer. The overall plan and architecture were envisioned by Arquitectonica and interiors were designed by Richardson-Sadeki. The images below are the result of many early mor ..read more
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The Making of Airportraits: Chasing Planes Around The World
Mike Kelley Blog
by TDC
2y ago
I just spent nearly two years of my life photographing airplanes and airports. It wasn’t two years straight with no interruption, but it did occupy a good deal of my waking hours. Even if I wasn’t photographing airports or airplanes, I was planning how I was going to photograph them, making arrangements to photograph them, or staying up until 3am tracking airplane movements and wind patterns. In March of 2014, I created the first image of this series, Wake Turbulence, which depicted an entire day’s worth of aircraft movements at LAX composited into a single image. The resulting work was plaste ..read more
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Eyes Aloft: The Sublimity of Plane Spotting" Published in Virgina Quarterly Review
Mike Kelley Blog
by TDC
2y ago
Over the past couple of years I’ve been working to photograph airports all over the world, and a large part of that project involves photographing aviation enthusiasts who line the edges of runways with their cameras pointed skyward. Known as planespotters, these enthusiasts have actually played a very interesting part in our world economy, exposing movements of some of the most elusive figures and celebrities by uploading images of their private aircraft to the web for all to see. I was lucky enough to be chosen to illustrate VQR’s story about this interesting and relatively under-the-radar h ..read more
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A long way from Los Angeles
Mike Kelley Blog
by Mike Kelley
2y ago
I have not written much at all on here, which I simultaneously regret and also enjoy. I had one of the most productive summers of my life, so am loathe to say that I was 'too busy' to write up here, because I believe people who say they're busy just can't manage their time properly (wink wink) so let's just say I put myself under enormous pressure to pull off a ton of projects in a short amount of time, because, well, if not now, then when? Here's a quick recap of what I was up to since the last blog post. I taught an architectural photography workshop in the Bahamas, in which I taught 20+ asp ..read more
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LA AIRSPACE Kickstarter: Halfway done, 86% funded!
Mike Kelley Blog
by Mike Kelley
2y ago
I have neglected the blog on this site for the past month, which is rather unfortunate, considering all that has been going on! I recently decided that the time was right to wrap up and publish my work featuring the city of Los Angeles as photographed from a helicopter. The project is named LA AIRSPACE and as the title mentions, we are 86% funded on Kickstarter as of today! We've got half of the campaign left and I'm so excited with the progress we've made so far. The book has been two years in the making, and has had me in the air covering Los Angeles in all four seasons. The book is being ..read more
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Architectural Photography Q+A With University of Lancashire Student
Mike Kelley Blog
by Mike Kelley
2y ago
I recently received an email from a student at the University of Lancashire in Preston, England, asking for a few minutes to answer some questions for a report he'd been working on. What I initially thought would be a five-minute email ended up turning into an hour-long type-a-thon! The student asked some wonderful questions and really got me to give up some good insight into my job and life, and as a result, I figured it was interesting enough to share with the world. I get asked most of these questions on a fairly regular basis, so it is good to make it permanent here on the blog. Enjoy! And ..read more
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Wine Country Pre-Fab with BluHomes in Healdsburg
Mike Kelley Blog
by Mike Kelley
2y ago
Apologies for the lack of blogging lately! I haven't been in Los Angeles much at all, with trips to San Francisco, NYC, Dubai, Mexico and somewhere else that I forget, it's just been an absolutely manic yet totally exciting winter for me.  At the end of 2014 I was worried that there would just be no way for me to top the amazing year that I've had, but damn if I'm not off to a great start this year.  I'm getting back on the train to write about a really amazing shoot I did up in Healdsburg, about 2 hours north of San Francisco, for BluHomes. Set amongst gently rolling hills and the c ..read more
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Aerial photography of the labor dispute at the Port of LA and Long Beach
Mike Kelley Blog
by Mike Kelley
2y ago
As anyone who follows my work knows, I'm fascinated by industry and infrastructure. For the past few weeks, a labor dispute has been unfolding at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. After flying over the area while coming in to land at LAX, I saw all of these giant container ships anchored offshore and instantly knew that I had to photograph it.  The next day I called my pilot and said 'when is the soonest we can go up?!' Less than 24 hours later we were in the air. It was one of the most exciting experiences I've had doing aerial photography - being that far out at sea, w ..read more
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