I'm Mike Macintire, and I'm excited to join the steemit community! I hope my photography can be a valuable contribution to steemit's fast-growing pool of creative wealth. Unless I state otherwise, every image I share was photographed and edited by me personally.
Love and Liberty
I lucked out bigtime by marrying the most amazing girl on earth. Lauren is smart, sexy, and the embodiment of integrity. She's my best friend.
We had a state-free and religion-free wedding. There was nothing to get in the way of our celebration and declaration of love for each other. We live in Auburn, Alabama and have three wonderful dogs.
I am a libertarian/ancap/voluntaryist, and that's how I found cryptocurrencies. To give you an idea of my particular flavor of liberty, I'm a fan of folks like Robert P. Murphy, Jeffrey Tucker, Tom Woods, and Stephan Kinsella. I identify as the Myers-Briggs personality type INFP, and I'm 32 years old.
Poker in Mexico
I played online poker professionally for most of the time between 2006 and 2015. After the US government effectively shut down online poker in the US in 2011, my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I moved to Cozumel, Mexico to pursue my poker career. We lived there for a little more than three years, and it was a really great experience.
As much as Mexico had going for it, though, it didn't have our family and friends. We moved back to Alabama in early 2016 and I left my poker career behind. I've since realized I was grinding my life away playing mid- and low-stakes tournament poker, and I'm much happier now that I'm pursuing things I find more fulfilling.
I discovered my passion for photography while living in Mexico. Now that I'm living in the US again where playing online poker is riskier and less profitable, and because I don't really enjoy playing poker professionally anymore, I have decided to make a new path. I started a real estate photography business in Auburn, and I've been gaining experience with other types of commercial photography. I'm having a lot of fun, and business is off to a good start!
Thank you, steemit!
I learned about steem and steemit less than two weeks ago. I have been blown away by the effect they've had on me in that short time! I feel more inspired and motivated to create great content than ever. Whether I have success directly on steemit or not, it's already played a very positive role for me and I'm grateful. I will bring my newly learned skills and heightened confidence wherever I go.
I made this drone video for fun and to serve as verification that I am who I say I am. I recently bought a DJI Phantom 3 4K, and I'm having a blast playing with it! I'm excited to learn to make great videos.
Thank you so much for checking out my introduction! I hope you enjoy my posts, and I would love to have you as a follower! Click here to go to my profile page, then click 
in the upper right corner if you would like to see my work regularly. Thank you again for reading, and have a great day!
Hi @mikemacintire, so are you all in or are you bluffing? can't tell with that pokerface ;) hehe Welcome and what made me click in this was the "drone" reference, I did something like that a few weeks ago ;) I'm saving to buy my own drone, maybe in a few weeks, what are you flying with?
https://steemit.com/steemit/@brunopro/steemit-from-portugal-to-the-world-concept-idea-for-a-series-of-promotional-videos-for-steemit
Hi @brunopro! I love your video! I actually saw it yesterday when I searched for drone videos on steemit. I wanted to say "First Drone Verification Video!" in my title, but I couldn't because you beat me to it! Very nicely done. :)
I bought the DJI Phantom 3 4k. It's got all of the benefits of the Pro version over the Standard, except for range. I only get 3/4 of a mile instead of 3.2 miles of range. For my purposes, it was worth giving up the range to save about $400.
That's an awesome way to do a verification video, though I was kind of hoping it would be the other way around... start out with a nice big shot of the city, then slowly descending until we see your huge beard and smile.
I've never been to Cozumel, but people say that area around Playa del Carmen is amazing. I live here in Guadalajara.
Welcome to Steemit, and have a good one
Thanks! That's cool that you live in Guadalajara. There are a lot of things to love about Mexico.
Just for fun I did the video in reverse! I think I like it even better this way! @churdtzu
yeah, the reverse video is more "artistic" ;)
Haha yeah, I think it's much better that way.
Really nice pics Mike !
TY!
It was interesting to read about you. Welcome to Steemit. I'll wait on you more good, high-quality pictures :)
Thanks! I'll keep posting! :)
Welcome! I will follow you. I cant wait to see your photos.
Thank you!
and by the way, you should remove your email, bots will pick that up and junkmail will come. cheers!
Thanks.
Welcome Mike!
Thank you!
hi, Mike.
Hello, Ivan. :)
Holy cow man. As a grinder, I came to taht realization...later than you unfortunately but yeah, i know who you feel.
I hope you find the success you deserve here.
Follow you and bring it!!
Thank you so much! I wish you the best, friend!
Hey Mike, also a poker player here with a similar story (although I moved to Vancouver and transitioned to daily fantasy sports instead of a real job). What was your online name and what games did you specialize in? And how did you learn about photography? Take any classes or just gradually buy incrementally better cameras as you spent more time taking photos?
Hi @daut44, I'm actually familiar with your name from poker! I'm "roachclips" on PokerStars, which is where I played the most. I doubt we played much together. I was mostly a $20 ABI turbo mttsng grinder, whereas you know what it's like to win $1,500,000 in a poker tournament at age 22. Haha :)
My interest in photography came in a couple stages, none of which being formal training. First I started taking pictures because I wanted to remember good times I was having with my wife-to-be starting about 6 years ago. The next phase was a year or two taking photos of the colors and culture of Cozumel, Mexico with my iPod touch to post on instagram because I thought it was beautiful. Once we decided to get married, I finally bought a DSLR camera to make sure we could get great photos of that time. I taught myself about technical and creative elements of photography by watching many hours of youtube videos and taking lots and lots of pictures!
@daut44 @mikemacintire
I've noticed this quitting poker trend in recent years. What happened, guys? Did the fish pool dried or the game become more competitive and less profitable?
My experience is that, yes, there have been progressively fewer recreational players at the tables each year. The 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforecement Act started the strangling of the player pool. People couldn't just use their credit card to deposit money onto a poker site anymore. It became more and more difficult to deposit and cash out.
Who do you think plays poker when it's a pain in the ass to deposit and cash out? People who really want to. People who take poker seriously and hope to profit, along with a tiny percentage that are degenerate gambler-types. The people who just play for fun are gone.
Then the US government effectively shut down the top 3 poker sites offering service to the United States on Black Friday in 2011. The entire market of the US disappeared from the player pool. Who has the most disposable income and interest in poker in the world? People in the US. So that was devastating to the profitability of the game. @saulius
I remember turning PokerStars play money into real money (around $9, I think it was) and then building that pot up to over $500. I was pretty proud of that and even cashed out some money and gave $50 to a friend so he could play on the "real money" tables with me. I really enjoyed it, but ended up spending too much time on it and watching my stash eventually dwindle down. I think I pulled out like $250 or $300 though. I have a regular monthly in person game I can play in, but I've just been too busy with my business and other things. Sometimes it can be a bit frustrating when you "do everything right" and still don't get the outcomes you want. Seems like a huge time investment with little enjoyment return anymore... but I do enjoy hanging out with my friends. The social part of it is always fun.
What an epic video man! Welcome to Steemit! :)
Thank you very much!
+1 on this. Lovely neighborhood
Best intro video ever! My wife saw your PorcFest photo. Very cool! I have a post I'm working on about that as well. Welcome to Steemit! I followed and look forward to more of your content.
Hi Luke! My wife and I will be at next year's PorcFest. We would love l to meet you and your family! Looks like you're posting great stuff! Followed you, looking forward to seeing your posts. Thanks for the warm welcome to steemit!
I just got my porcfest post up. I'm hoping my wife will be open to going again next year. She enjoyed it, I think, but it took a lot of warming up for her. If we had more friends she already knew there, she'd enjoy it a lot more, I think. Hopefully she'll build some relationships here on Steemit and want to go just to see them. :)
I find photographing buildings to be challenging. So many buildings don't have a personality and their photos are just flat and boring. Your photo of those apartments are really nice. The light and composition really makes that whole complex look great! Here's to your future in real estate photography!
Thank you very much!
Had I known you had such a studly beard I would have followed you long ago :)
Haha! :)
hmm.... perhaps I should learn to do some realty photography from the master here. :-)
Maybe I'll do a tutorial or something!
Will be interesting though I've no drone I'll look to learn something.
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I could not find nicer and better words than those . I feel the same ! So nice to get to know you better with your great articles
Welcome
Beautiful drone video introduction, didn't see it yet.
Wish I had a drone too!
I had one (parrot) but was very lo-res and it broke :-\