We were lucky to catch up with Mike Patton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mike , appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I mostly learned photography from my father , and youtube. My dad is my biggest inspiration for becoming a photographer and following this path . After being kicked out of college ; I took upon myself to learn what I could from youtube , and other photographers in my area. I believe that I could have learned about the different niche’s of photography thus honing in on what niche’s I resonate with sooner. The skills I believe are important are knowing the in and out of your niche in photography , learn how to use your camera fully , and learn the business aspect of photography as well. Mostly working my 9-5 , but I haven’t had many obstacles to learning because the information is out there for free.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Wow!! What a great question , and I think the best way to start this off ; is with an explanation for my nomenclature ” ONI.”I adopted this name since 2017. The folklore of the “ONI” is seems to loosely describe how people view my art , in which most of people around me don’t believe to be any sustainable , and mostly something that exist only in my head. The term also describes how people view me ; as a monstrous being who should be kept far away . When people meet me I am generally not what they envisioned and neither is my art. As I stated in the previous question ; I was inspired to be a photographer from watching my father take all of our family photos , church events , family vacation photos and etc. He was a creative , out of the box thinker and that is what lead me on my creative path along with the help of anime and other creative outlets.

I am strictly a Street & Portrait Photographer . Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of being able to try different photography niche’s and these were the two that stuck with me the most , and the ones that I spend the most time honing in my skill. My past clients and potential clients will learn that I love a good location , and being an Atlanta native , I tend to know a lot of great photographic spots to capture stunning portraits.

I offer Portrait Sessions , Event Photography , Maternity Shoots, Engagements Shoots and more. The problem I solve most for clients is having a smooth portrait session. Whatever I can do to help make that happen , I will do!!
What sets me apart again will be my location choices , I spend a lot of time before the shoot to research an area closet to my clients to help make the session a bit easier and to hopefully find a place where they have not seen someone taking photos before. Making sure the client has distinguished portraits is important.

What I would say I’m most proud of is my youtube channel . It took me such a long time to start it , and I’ve been able to gain a following with it. I want to teach people photography , and show my journey in the industry along with behind the scenes things as well. I am also proud of my Street Photography. I’ve been inspired by so many artist , and to be able to create stunning street portraits , and scenes make me the most happy .

Just so people who read this know ; my portrait page is @portraitsbymikep , and my street photography page is @oniphotos .

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I personally come from a traditional African American home , and in my family most if not everyone has a degree in some field . I’m the only one who follows a creative field , and the only one who still is “grinding” to make a living . I get a lot of slack for not doing something like plumbing or electric work , and giving up on this “dream” . I fight not only with my depression but against my environment of people who are close to me ; who do not believe that I can make it in this business ,and create a life not only for myself but for them as well. I am still creating , and still moving forward despite this and financial hardships . I always believed that as a man if we can’t make our dreams happen then how can we tell our kids that they can make their dreams come true.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

This is an interesting question for the near death moment portion. I don’t condone people putting themselves at risk for the shot , but I will if i find it necessary if need be. On this day ; me and my good friend Saiid Parker decided to do a portrait session in an nearby park with a close associate of ours. We got out early to shoot , and did a lot of the shoot in a nearby wooded area. Towards the end of the shoot ; we decided that we should capture some portraits on the train track nearby . So we all walked over to the track and waited for about five minutes before proceeding to setup for this shoot . If you didn’t know ; there is no way for trains to stop while in motion , but to get back to the story . We started our shoot , and everything went well for about forty minutes. As we were wrapping up the model turned around to retrieve her back from the embankment fifteen yards in front of us. As soon as she made it to her bag ; I could see what looked like the front of a train coming down the track. Saiid and I took off running , but i forgot the light attached to a c-stand on the train tracks , now the train is about 50 feet in front of us at this point , and its blowing its horn hard. I run to retrieve the light [ which is not light by the way ] and get it out of the way of the train. As I turn to run my foot slips into the space between the slacks of the rail road . I panic as I look back , and the train is now thirty-five feet in front of me . I was able to free my foot and get off to the side just as the train is passing by at this point , and the conductor flipping us off for being in his way .

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oniphotos.net
• Instagram: @portaitsbymikep , @oniphotos
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIhqEr3SIoIjkL35rHT5Bw
• Other: Portait website : WWW.ONIPHOTOS.MYPIXIESET.COM

Image Credits
” In Love” Abigail Lauren ( model) , Lead Photographer for the shoot ( @qats_eye). “Grace” @iamrosay ( model )