Mike Olbinski Photography

Hey everyone!

Welcome to my Patreon page! I'm incredibly excited to launch and start growing this community of patrons. I'm a huge weather nut and I've loved storms my entire life. I'm a professional photograher living in Arizona with my wife and three beautiful kiddos! About 11-12 years ago I started getting really interested in lightning photography, and so I gave it a shot and I was hooked big time! In 2011 I was beginning my journey into time-lapse photography and captured an epic dust storm over Phoenix that went viral and set me on the path I'm still on today. A few years later in 2013, I witness the stunning Booker supercell in Texas, and it also went crazy online (number one video on Vimeo in 2013!)...which only confirmed to myself that I was doing what I was meant to do. My work has been seen all over the world, in magazines, movies, commercials and nature documentaries. 

I enjoy chasing storms so much, but mainly I'm in love with photographing them and sharing their beauty with the world. While I absolutely relish making individual photographs, my real passion lies in time-lapse and making short films to display the power of storms. 

The Goal of this Patreon Site

I've missed the community and fun I used to have live streaming, something I may get back into, but in the meantime, I wanted to create a new home for sharing my work. These days, we have so many options...Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, YouTube, Facebook...and I feel a bit scattered and lost. I want to focus my efforts on a single place, and give it my all. The idea is to really share what I do and what I love. From daily updates on where I'm chasing, how things look, sneak peeks of behind-the-scenes moments, to creating tutorials, screencasts and even film premieres.

But I also want to interact with you guys...get to know you, have fun in the comments and feedback, do live Q&A sessions and have some fun!

Why Become a Patron

My wife Jina and I put a lot of thought into the tiers over to the right and what kind of benefits you'd receive while also supporting my work and efforts. I think the chase updates, photos and monthly wallpapers will be fun, but the tutorials will be super helpful for anyone getting into photography and trying to get better at it, especially storm imagery. I also know I have a lot of supports of my time-lapse films and I really wanted to find a way to give back to you guys who love them so much, so I will premiere them here first for the people who are at that tier, plus share sneak peeks from the current ones I'm shooting and even first looks at rough drafts of these films.

Mainly though, I think this could be something special and I hope you'll be a part of it! Thank you for supporting me and allowing me to continue doing what I love.