Mikayla Harrell

Nicole Laws

Carrie Post

Allisun Hull

Danielle Schlichte

James Cookes

Kelly Carpenter

Irene Minster

I spent my Sunday morning at Jacksons/Winkeljohns with UFC fighter John Dodson putting together a few photos for a magazine. The Magazine requested a very specific look. Looking back at the images I didn’t deliver a 100% as they had better highlights on the side of the face. Other than that these should be spot on. The examples they showed me were shot by the UFC and with an extreme lighting set up. I believe they use 6 or 7 strobe heads along with several flags and reflectors. My set is two Zeus packs with a total of four heads. I have two on the white seamless in the back, one on a boom with a beauty dish and the last a medium softbox in front. I should have delivered a better product but all-in-all I’m happy because I only had my four year old daughter Bronte as a stand in and didn’t want to waste a lot of John’s time. John was looking after his girlfriends daughter Christian. The two four year old girls enjoyed running around the world famous mma dojo and playing together. Thanks to John for making it happen and keeping it real. He’s the happiest guy in all of mma…all the time.

Congrats to UFC Interim Welterweight Champion Carlos Condit. I’ve been extremely fortunate over the last several years to get to know Carlos and I’m very happy to see him get the belt wrapped around his waist in the UFC. I first met Carlos when I was making photographs at FITNHB. He was training with Tom and Arlene Vaughn and was the WEC welterweight champ. At the time Carlos was sponsored by Sinister Brand a mixed martial arts lifestyle apparel brand owned by Ed Soares.

Tom Vaughn not only trained and managed fighters at FITNHB, he also promoted them in his own organization called Fightworld. As it turned out Ed Soares also managed mixed martial artists and they were all from Brazil. The biggest names under Ed’s banner at the time were the Nogueira brothers and Anderson Silva. At the time I was pitching Ed and Sinister Brand to purchase my photos and artwork of Condit so they could promote Sinister Brand and Carlos. As it turned out Ed was coming to town with a group of his fighters to compete in the Fightworld promotion and I made certain I got to know Ed. I hosted the Brazilian clan of fighters and made certain they were comfortable in the Duke City. Ed and I formed a friendship and working relationship that found me spending fight weeks with Lyoto Machida at UFC 94 and 98 and Anderson Silva at UFC 97

Around that time Carlos took a detour to AZ deciding to leave FITNHB and pursue other training . Eventually Carlos came back to NM but switched camps to Jacksons/Winkeljohns. Carlos and I teamed up again on a feature article for UFC Magazine. All though years had past Carlos was still the same cool professional dude I had photographed years prior. We caught up on where he was in his career, his training and his family life as a new father. After the photo shoot I highly recommended Carlos connect with Adrian Gonzales. Adrian is a friend of mine in Albuquerque, NM and probably the best strength and conditioning trainer in the state. Eventually Carlos and Adrian connected and have been training together for over a year now. Again… I was fortunate and privileged to be given the access to document Carlos and his training with Adrian. At the same time I was snapping pictures, Will Fox another local photographer, connected with Carlos and put together a website for Carlos titled www.campcondit.com. Will and Carlos have made some awesome images together and created a cool site documenting his fight camps leading up to the Interim Welterweight Title Fight with Nick Diaz.

Anyways, I’m not a writer but am basically trying to say how I got to know Carlos and that I’m a big fan and honored to be a small contributor to his camp. I always felt that he could make the move from the WEC to the UFC and become a champ there as well. In fact, I clearly remember discussing it with Carlos several years ago on a drive back from our Sinister Brand shoot (the one with pile of bricks).

Needless, to say I’m impressed that he’s made it happen and look forward to what the future once again has in store for Carlos Condit.

I met up with Heather early this morning at Jacksons/Winkeljohns and we put together a quick shoot prior to my ass getting to work. I like the above shot a lot and wish Heather all the best on her upcoming fight in XFC. Watch it live on HDNET next friday.

Some more from today..

We are shooting again early Friday morning with more of an MMA theme. Should be cool stuff …AGAIN.

WMMA Fighter Heather Jo Clark: Heather will be the co main event for XFC 16 High Stakes February 10, 2012 Live on HDNET.

Henry Martinez is fighting in UFC 143. The dude just fought in Jacksons MMA Series 7 and I gather Joe Silva must have liked his inverted triangle submission. Henry is a beast and I can’t wait to see him in action. Mind you he fought at 155 lbs in the JMMAS7 and is moving up to fight Matt Riddle at welterweight 170lbs. With him and Carlos Condit on the card I’m more than excited for this weekends UFC. Also I’m pretty excited that Tracy got a babysitter and is going to join me at Elliots Bar.

Jacksons MMA Series 7: MMA fighter Armando Montoya Jr. poses after his win at the Hard Rock Casino in Albuquerque, NM.

Michelle Waterson The Karate Hottie MMA Fighter – Images by Andrew DeMattos