May 12 2014

Guest Photographer: Michael Franz

Not only did Michael Franz’s dream of meeting Art Wolfe come true last year,

Meeting Art

Michael also landed the cover of TIME magazine March 17, 2014 with a brilliant 360 gigapixel image from the top of 1 World Trade Center.

Michael talks about his journey . . . .

“Gifts can have an unforgettable impact on a person’s life, like the 35mm camera given to me by my older brother. With a fascination of art from a young age, I would feverishly work through sketchbooks drawing everything imaginable, spending hours trying to replicate what I saw in real life on a piece of paper. I also carried that first camera with me everywhere and treasured the thought of getting that one perfect shot so people could see what I see.

After becoming a father in 2000, time constraints had me step away from art and photography to focus on family. It was in 2007 that I saw my first episode of Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe. After seeing one episode, I was so inspired and said – ‘that’s it’, I have to follow my passion of photography and art again.

My photography experience includes magazine editorial photography, commercial construction photography, portraits, landscapes, fine art and gigapixel photography. As an expert in shooting gigapixel panoramas using GigaPan technology, I capture hundreds of thousands of images and combine them into a single, high-resolution image to digitally explore, pan, zoom and share. During my career at GigaPan, I have conducted seminars and workshops, trained top photographers, and developed tutorial videos and webinars. To this day, I still carry my camera everywhere, prepared to capture the next great shot.”