Nature Research Video Index

Biography
Mike was born in the beautiful city of Bucharest, Romania. He arrived in Canada along with his lovely wife Teo in 1995 and enthusiastically started what he calls the second phase of his life. The following biography describes two aspects of his life, the photographic and professional careers, which together take 90% of his time.

His friends call him a techie that speaks marketing and sees life in stills photographs.


First Light - Mike on Location
Self-portrait, 2006


Nature Research Photography & Videography
At the present time Mike is focusing on nature research photography projects. He may accept commercial assignments of different nature if time permits. Previous commercial assignments for Mike included corporate events, golf-tournaments, screensavers, and industrial and product photography. If you are looking for help with a project you can << Contact Mike Lascut >> and let him know what is needed.

Mike's photographic interests are in understanding the life which surrounds us, particularly in identifying, observing and recording behavioral similarities between humans and other species.

Current projects involve travel within Ontario, and target wildlife as his main photographic subject matter, with an increased interest for birds, butterflies, amphibians and reptiles, and the ocassional breathtaking sunrise. Mike's photographic journeys materialize around his home in Oakville, Ontario, in his ongoing quest for moments worth capturing, printing and admiring in the years to come.

"Mike did a great job at our 18th annual golf tournament. We provided the cart and off he went taking many outstanding shots. Mike's candid and action photos were particularly impressive as he was able to capture several good, bad, and ugly swings that day. Overall a great experience!"

John C. Doma
Tournament Director
Henry-UofTScar Alumni Golf Tourney

Mike also holds a diploma in Wildlife and Forestry Conservation from the International Career School of Canada.

Highlights
  • Witnessing a house sparrow feeding its chick and capturing the moment 'on sensor' made his day
  • Switching to digital photography, effortlessly and with no regrets. The switch opened up many possibilities, including merging his technical capabilities with his love for the Internet and his love for photography. This merger is an ongoing process and it is an integral part of his life. Expect more to come!
     

Bird Photography - Mike on Location
Self-portrait, 2007

"We found Mike Lascut's beautiful images of these feathered friends on his Web site (www.mikephoto.com) and contacted him to see if we could borrow an image or two for our feature story. If you asked readers in our area if they have seen a bluebird, most would say, “I haven't seen a bluebird for years.” The Eastern Bluebird was once common throughout much of our state. In the past 50 years, the bluebird population has declined almost 90 percent. Mike's photos allowed us to show our readers how beautiful these birds are."

Tracy Ahrens
Neighbors section editor
Russell Publications, Peotone, Illinois

See the Eastern Bluebird story and photographs


Photo & Video Equipment
  • Digital Photographic Equipment: Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 10D, Sony DSC F505
  • Video Equipment: Canon XH-A1
  • Film-based Photographic Equipment: Medium format (Kowa Six), 35mm format (Zenit-E, 2 Pentax Asahi, and a Kiev rangefinder)
  • Lenses: A large variety of L-quality Canon lenses, primes and zooms, providing effective focal length coverage from 17mm to 1200mm. In addition, a set of specialty lenses to provide the necessary macro and perspective correction capabilities when needed. Lastly and unfortunately hardly used, a variety of manual focus, but with excellent optics, lenses for the film cameras
  • (Lots of) Photographic accessories to help in making the photograph
  • Digital processing: Top-of-the-line laptops for on-site processing, multi-processor desktop computers for the digital darkroom, 22 inch and 24 inch color-corrected monitors, inkjet printers, web server hosting the http://www.mikephoto.com and its auxiliary sub-systems. Below, a photograph illustrating Mike's digital darkroom


Professional Career
Mike Lascut's professional career spans little over 20 years. Before starting working for (real) money, Mike pretty much took advantage of his parents' love without returning much on their investment. We're just kidding. He is a loved son, and he has birthday greeting cards to prove it.
Returning to the point we were trying to make, most of his 20+ years were spent in front of computers and he warily acknowledges that the digital photography craze didn’t help much in disconnecting him from the monitors.
Here's a quick list of what he experienced, are currently going on, and will hopefully happen again:
  • 15+ years of software development and application architecture, having the pleasure to work on some of the most high-profile e-commerce and transactional Internet projects in Canada, US and Italy
  • Mike is principal and founder of the Single Entry Point® Marketing, an online marketing consultancy offering search, email and analytics solutions for companies seeking an edge in the marketplace
  • Achieved great expertise in the most coveted digital marketing channels: search engine marketing and email marketing
  • Authored the Single Entry Point® Email Relationship Management application, used successfully over the years for large-scale email marketing campaigns
  • An invitation from Microsoft to his employee of 1999 to work in the Commerce Server 2000 product unit, has found him packed and ready to experience Redmond and surroundings. Besides tremendously enjoying working on the Microsoft campus (highly recommended), Mike appreciated the quick mountain drive to the east and the ocean drive to the west


'Free Time'
Mike's free time, whatever is left of it, is spent researching his next photo assignment, playing with his German Shepherd Tasha, and trying to mow the damn lawn under the ever critical eye of his lovely wife Teo.

Mike's favorite call-to-action: Onto the next assignment™

The MikePhoto.com Team