| Michael Ready began photographing the world during field studies in Baja California, Mexico in the late 1980s. He has participated in expeditions to over a dozen countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador, Japan, Panama, and Thailand. Michael¹s collection of images seeks to encompass the diversity of life and its forms, ranging from the native Guyami indians of Panama to spawning basket stars in the South Pacific. Though he has traveled to remote and exotic destinations, he still finds intrigue and inspiration in the details of an Arizona unicorn mantis or a colony of California harvester ants.
While possessing a background deeply rooted in natural history, Michael¹s vision is divergent from a typified "nature" photographer. His work proceeds from a fine arts perspective, with an eye for rich colors, abstract patterns, and compositional mystery. He strives to reveal the "within" of nature, the interior of life -- without anthropomorphizing. The resulting images hopefully bring a connection to the wild within and without us, to the idea that nothing is outside of Nature. To that end, the bulk of Michael's work consists of large installations of the tiniest, and most significant, life forms on Earth. His high magnification images of invertebrates, both terrestrial and marine, show the myriad organisms that comprise the majority of life -- life that supports our own existence. In his signature style, Michael's work reveals a world
that many would otherwise never see or experience -- or even know to exist. |
