About / Contact
Michael Mariant is a travel & documentary visual journalist based in California, while his travels have taken him around the world. Following several years as a newspaper photojournalist and desk editor, Michael moved away from local and regional coverage and up to wire service photography.
For over a decade now, Michael has been a contract photojournalist for The Associated Press, responsible for coverage of the Central Coast of California along with sports and entertainment assignments in Los Angeles, notably anchoring the agency’s coverage of the Michael Jackson trial from 2003 to 2005. In addition to his domestic photojournalism, Michael spends nearly a third of each year abroad shooting travel/documentary imagery and footage, along with lecturing on the topics of Cultural Sensitivity and Immersion in Travel Photography.
Michael is also the consultant and multimedia coordinator for the Semester at Sea study abroad program, providing lectures and instructions to the college students while shaping the direction of the programs multimedia efforts in video, still photography and podcasts through social media.
While still taking on editorial and Associated Press assignments, Michael has shifted his focus to DSLR cinematography projects, as well as educational travel photography workshops for Nikonians Academy and High Sierra Workshops, as well as university and industry lecture engagements so as to instruct others on the analytical, cultural and visual approaches to travel photography and cinematography.
Michael has lectured around the world — literally — with the Semester at Sea program and for his annual Nikonians Academy “Ultimate Travel Workshop” on the theme of Cultural Sensitivity, Visual Thinking and Travel Photography.
Michael’s main focus for the past decade has been studying the cultural communication issues facing photographers when traveling abroad, focusing on the analytical, stereotypical and philosophical battles that emerge when a photographer encounters a ‘foreign’ culture. This had led to practical applications of visual thinking and cultural sensitivity approaches in photography, applied through in-the-field examples, training and discussions to the photographic and media communities.
Michael lectures to photography groups, universities, and institutes on the following topics:
- Cultural Sensitivity for Today’s Travelers
- Introduction to Travel Photography
- Components of Travel Photography
- Documentary Photography Methodology and Approach
- Traditional Street Photography
- The Business of Photography
- The psychology and dangers of the intimate Subject/Photographer Relationship
- Media Ethics
- Behinds the Scenes of a Wire Service Photography
- Video & the HD-DSLR Camera
- Multimedia Production for Web Content
To inquire about availability, please email Michael through the contact form below.
As founder, director and lead instructor of High Sierra Workshops, Michael brings more than 25 years of professional photography experience to the workshops, offering location workshops in landscape, travel and cultural photography and HD-DSLR.
Michael’s domestic workshop locations include: Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, the Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley, the Big Sur region, and the Giant Redwoods of Northern California. Travel workshop locations include: Central America, Cuba and additional Caribbean island nations. Michael instructional workshops include Timelapse Photography (in San Francisco) and HD-SLR Video (in Santa Barbara).
High Sierra Workshops is a dedicated and thoughtful combination of educational photographic instruction with guiding services in spectacular, iconic locations.
While most workshops simply take you around to predetermined sights, telling you where to point the camera and what the camera settings are for that shot, High Sierra Workshops have an integrated learning component for each and every location, from technical instruction to visual composition skills to theoretical applications. The lessons taught and utilized at each location are built upon the previous location’s lessons while preparing you for the next location, resulting in a comprehensive, guided learning experience … that just happens to be in a spectacular location!