About one year after getting my digital camera and doing a lot of shooting and processing, I found a site on the internet called nature photographers and started sharing my images. I also started entering my images into some photo contests.

At the end of 2004 things started happening really fast as I ended up winning image of the year in the macro category at the nature photographers. Also won highly honored with three images in the Windland Smith Rice International contest put on my Nature Best magazine. I had one of my images selected for "Let's See Your Best Shot" and it was published in Outdoor Photographer magazine.

During that same time, I opened my emails and found an email from Fuji. They said they saw my images at the site Nature Photographers online and that I was using their Fuji S2 camera and that they were coming out with the S3 and wanted me to shoot some images with the new camera.

I told them I was not going to buy a new camera, and they said we will give you the camera you just shoot images with it and post them.

They also sent me to some photo conferences and were printing my images, having me sign them, and giving them away to people that stopped at their booth. I felt like a rock star.

Unfortunately, that all ended after the Fuji S5 camera and they ended making DSLR cameras. So I moved on to the Nikon cameras as my lenses were all Nikon mounts which is what Fuji used.

Not long after I started with Fuji, Tamron contact me about shooting with their lenses and started a long relationship shooting their lenses.

I was starting to get photo conferences contacting me asking if I would come and present on macro photography and Tamron became my sponsor and paid me for those speaking engagements.

I also was contacted by equipment companies asking me to use their products, which I am still working with and using to this day.

In 2005 I submitted an article to Outdoor Photographer Magazine on macro photography, and it was accepted and published, which gave me confidence to send out more articles to other magazines and have had many more accepted and published.

I got into the art show business in 2006 and sold thousands of prints for eight years, but after tiring of the work that goes into that business and set my new goal of teaching macro photography through workshops.

I was contacted by two companies that sell artwork wanting to sell my images, GreatBigCanvas.com CanvasWorld.com and they are still selling my images today.

Over the years I have taught thousands of photographers in my workshops and at photo conferences and even started my own Macro Photo Conferences that sold out each year for eight years until covid hit and I stop doing them.

Then the online craze started as camera clubs who could not meet in person because of covid started doing zoom meetings online. I was now getting camera clubs contacting me to do presentation at the club meetings though zoom and have presented to hundreds of clubs in the US but also in many other countries.

Next, I started two online photo clubs, Macro Photo Club and the recent Flower Photography Club which combined has over 3,600 paid members form 29 countries.

I have been very fortunate and happy to have had all this success.

The point of these posts over the last couple days is to point out all this success has come while shooting jpegs which all the experts tell me jpegs suck. So, I'm not sure how I was able to make all these great images and have all this success if the jpeg files suck.

None of those sponsors, magazine's, conferences, or photographers signing up for my workshop and online clubs ever cared what format I was shooting in. All they knew was that the images looked great.

I don't teach people that they should shoot jpeg over RAW or tell them jpegs are better than RAW, I don't care which way you choose to shoot, I only tell people when I'm asked, that I produce my images shooting jpegs, and if you choose to shoot with jpegs I only hope you are lucky enough to have the same success that I have had.

Save yourself some time learning flower photography by joining my Flower Photography Club online. Learn from the experts. FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer