Michael ONeill Photographer Writer Motorcyclist Adventurer
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Meet Michael

MEET MICHAEL


Hi!

I'm Michael and I'm a photographer. Had been for most of my life. Picked up my first real camera, as a hobbyist, in the early 1970's. By the late 1970's I shot my first professional assignment...a wedding. In 1984 I left a lucrative job in corporate America to pursue a career in photography full time. I opened a studio on Larkfield Road in the village of East Northport, New York and stayed there until retiring in 2017. That is all I'm going to say about my "job". If you're interested in my professional education, accomplishments and accolades check out the "Accolades" page of this web site. I'm not going to bore you with those details here. This page is about Michael ONeill the person...not Michael ONeill the photographer.



I live in the town of Northport, NY; in the Crab Meadow section, which is a quaint little waterfront community outside the incorporated village. I have lived in Northport since 1979 and can't imagine living anywhere else (Except when Old Man Winter rears his ugly head. Then I think I'd like to live anyplace else). I live with my beautiful girlfriend, Vivian, in a home we bought together in 2008.

I am an avid motorcyclist and have probably logged in excess of a quarter million miles on two wheels in my lifetime. I've ridden as far north as the Gaspé peninsula in northeast Quebec Province...some 400 miles north of Halifax, Nova Scotia. I've ridden out of New York to Key West, Florida three times and have ridden in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona on more than one occasion. I've ridden the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains of New York and The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, The Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee & North Carolina, and the Appalachian mountains in West Virginia more times than I can remember. The Rocky Mountains, The Grand Tetons, The Canadian Rockies, The Pacific Coast Highway and The Badlands of South Dakota are still on my bucket list. I'll make it to those places soon.

I'm not going to tell you I initially pursued a career in photography because it was something that I was passionate about. I've read stuff like that in so many biographies and can never accept it. Passion is not something you pursue...it is something that pursues you. I don't believe that you can be truly passionate about something until you devote a lot of your time, blood, sweat and tears to it. The more experience you have with something the better your skills become. By developing those skills you reap more rewards and greater satisfaction from your pursuits and put yourself in a position to touch the lives of others in a positive way. Passion, in my humble opinion then, is a result of years of dedication, practice and experience. I can honestly tell you that I am passionate about long distance touring on my motorcycle and I am passionate about my photography. I hope I am blessed with the opportunity to share one or more of my passions with you.