Keeping others in focus

It has reached the point that upon arriving to area sporting events, parents tend to look for a familiar bespectacled photographer roaming the sidelines.
If he’s there, Mike Myer knows to expect a visit or two.
The conversations are remarkably similar.
The parents introduce themselves, point out which player (or players) is their offspring, then ask if Myer can capture an action photo or two.
“It happened twice in the first half of my first game here,” Myer said Tuesday as Iola High hosted Chanute in varsity, junior varsity and C-team basketball games. “It happens a lot.”
Like the teams he covers, Myer has generated quite a devoted following through Myer Photography, a home-based business he started about four years ago.
Myer specializes in senior and family portraits, weddings, product photography for catalogs or calendars, and during his spare time, nature and the stars. (Myer is also an amateur astronomer.)
Myer also has become a frequent contributor for the Register, offering several sports and astronomy photos in recent months.
Senior portraits and sports photography are his favorites.
“I enjoy doing the senior pictures because it’s a part of their senior year experience,” Myer said. “The seniors enjoy having their pictures taken. And I enjoy sports because it is a challenge to capture good action shots, and it gives the parents a chance to watch their sports stars play without having to worry about taking pictures themselves.”
Of particular interest for his customers are Myer’s sports collages, in which he captures several shots of a particular athlete, then combines them onto a single image. Those usually take several weeks or months because Myer will attend several games throughout the season in order to have dozens of shots to pick from.
“Actually, shooting the pictures is the easy part,” he said. “Designing the collages is what takes time.”

MYER, 53, Humboldt, gave little thought to making a living out of photography until about four years ago, when his youngest daughter, Miranda, came forward with her dream.
“She’s always wanted to be a pilot,” Myer said.
And flight lessons weren’t cheap.
His daughter’s revelation came about around the same time digital cameras were well on their way to supplanting film in the photography world.
“I had a couple of film cameras but it was getting harder and harder to get film processed, and I knew I could do so much more with digital photography,” he said.
Myer bought his first digital camera in 2008 and began taking random pictures at sporting events and elsewhere around town.
Folks quickly took notice.
Myer became a regular on the sidelines at Humboldt sporting events, then eventually at Chanute and Iola when his schedule permitted.
Soon, folks from farther away started calling, asking when he could pay their communities a visit.
As Myer’s schedule became more and more hectic, he switched jobs at Monarch Cement, where he’s worked the past 21 years.
“I’d always been in the shipping department, but that involved shift work and sometimes weekends,” he said.
As Myer Photography grew, he switched rolls at Monarch. He’s now a dust collector repairman, “which is an 8-to-5, Monday through Friday job. My evenings and weekends are dedicated to my photography.”
And in his spare time?
“I’ll let you know when I get some?” he joked.
Within the past few months, Myer expanded his business by converting a small room in his house into a photo studio.
“It just got to be a matter of convenience,” he said.
He also welcomes the opportunity to speak with other photographers.
While he is acquainted with pretty much every parent of Humboldt High’s athletes, he still is approached frequently during games by student photographers asking about shooting techniques, lenses or other ideas.
This, despite the fact that Myer has never taken as much as a photography class. Most of his lessons have come from trial and error.
Perhaps that’s why he is so eager to share his new-found knowledge to others, especially young photographers.

MYER grew up in Iola before moving with his family to Humboldt about the time he was ready for high school.
By then, Myer had developed what’s become a lifelong fascination with astronomy.
“I was about 10 years old in 1969, when we first walked on the moon,” he said. “When you grow up during the Space Race, you can’t help but be interested.”
Myer can be reached at (620) 473-3786, on the Internet at myerphotography.com or on his Facebook page.