John Middlestead has lived his entire life in Southeast Michigan and most recently with his wife Joan in South Lyon, Michigan.  He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) majoring in Industrial Design, with a minor in Photography from Michigan State University and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Wayne State University.  Wedged in between the two degrees was course work at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan.  During the later years of a thirty-two-year career at Michigan Consolidated Gas (MichCon), now part of DTE, John started reinventing himself as a fine art photographer.  It was the classic case of “what are you going to do when you grow up?”

In 2002, Middlestead started the process by honing his photographic skill set taking course work from local and national instructors Monte Nagler, Tim Cooper, Nancy Rotenberg, Doug Johnson, Elizabeth Stone, Susanna Gaunt, David Middleton, Les Saucier, Tony Sweet, Jackie Kramer and others.  The technical training and development have resulted in images that have appeared at the Canton Fine Arts Exhibition, Plymouth Council of the Arts, the International Ecotourism Society in Washington, D.C., the Art Crawl in Plymouth, Michigan, Oakwood and now Beaumont Hospitals of Southeast Michigan, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Westland City Hall, and one-man shows at The Village Theatre at Cherry Hill and TCF Bank (Canton).  He has been a featured artist in Art Showcase Magazine.  Awards have included a variety of types from the International Ecotourism Society, the Canton Fine Arts Exhibition, the Three Cities Art Exhibit in Westland, and the Greater Detroit Camera Club Council.  Middlestead has also shown his work locally through Art Fairs and other gallery showings in various locations throughout Southeast Michigan.  He is a member of the Three Cities Art Club and Livonia Camera Club.

Subject matter consists of everything from the grand landscapes of the National Parks to intricate designs of flowers on the kitchen counter.  Much of his early work was done with medium format film while over the last seventeen years he switched to a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera.  Recently, he also has been utilizing a converted DSLR for Infrared (IR) Black & White images.  For post-processing Middlestead uses Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop. 

In summary, Middlestead states, … “My photographic vision as an artist and photographer are to capture images that touch and calm my soul, and those who look at my images.  In this age of instant everything I desire a pause in the action, a time to enjoy a scene or detail often missed, and to be able to reflect and to share what I have seen”.