Mike Ash
1951 - 2004
I'm currently 53 years old, divorced and disabled. I have 3 children, the youngest of which is 20 years old now. My work background was in electronics; primarily communications. It was on the job in communications that I was injured 18 years ago. My foray into photography started 4 years ago when I bought an Olympus D-400z point and shoot. Mostly so I could take pictures to email to a few friends, but also to give me something to do with my time. That led me to doing macro photography. After quite a bit of experimenting around with different ways of getting closer I settled on using magnifying glasses, and incorporated them into a homemade macro lens that works good on the smaller cameras. All of my macro shots where taken using that lens, and I have an album set up on my album site with instructions on how it was made.
I was unable to go places to take pictures because I'm disabled. That limited me to what I could find in my yard. I experimented with holding close up filters in front of the camera lens, and then tried jewelers loupes.
The smaller details and the way nature behaved is what Mike found fascinating. Later on he became interested in all types of nature photography. He became a photographer for Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida. His photography grew. He brought himself an Olympus 2100uz and loved the long lens. That appealed for the reach it gave him for the animal shots at the zoo. In December of 2003, he finally ended up with a Minolta A1, a christmas present to himself.
His unique ability to be able to have insects on his fingers, bees, flies, wasps, etc made for exciting and interesting shots. Not many in this world has the gift of getting "Feeling" into macro photography shots. Mike had the talent and the work is remarkable to see. The vision, the clever unique talent of Mike will live forever. What he shared, we will never forget and the work of Mike Ash will live on.
Mikes favourite shot of 2003 was this shot
This shot says it all.
As Mike always wished for everyone, we wish the same for him. "Go in peace"