Michael Wise II

A Bit About Me

I began my career of paintball photography in 2003 when I started chrono300.com after I had an injury while playing paintball. Still feeling the desire to be on the field but unable to play at the tournament level I started my climb to shooting paintball at the national level.

My local field at the time was Outlaw Paintball Park (later changed to Redlands Paintball Park) and I figured that there was no better place to take pictures. I started off taking pictures of people that I played with and had made friends with while I was playing. Bea Youngs, Mike Paxson and two new teams at the time LTZ and Destiny where my main focus. During this time I found that I really enjoyed taking pictures and was getting a great response from the players.

From time to time small local events would be held at the Redlands field such as the Adrinaline Force Series and the XPSL, I found that I really had a great time being on the field taking pictures. With that I decided that I would try to attend more local events and being that I live in the heart of the paintball world in Southern California, I did not have to look far, because there was an event almost every weekend of the year.

With almost a year of taking pictures under my belt at local events and practices I had one goal in mind, to take pictures at an NPPL event. At the time getting on the field was not an easy task because they did not make a habit of just handing out passes to anyone. I went to the second Huntington Beach event and was flat out turned down for a pass and spent the entire event shooting from the grandstands and vendor area.

A few months later I went to the Las Vegas NPPL event figuring it would be more of the same. I again tried to get a field pass and was turned down with a comment like "I have never heard of chrono300." About and hour later Bea Youngs came to me with a field pass that I have no idea how she got it and set me loose on the field to take pictures. And with that I was hooked, I finally made the big show. I don't think I left the field for more than five minutes at a time the entire event.

For the remainder of the year I shot almost every weekend. I started looking on PBNation for the locations where there would be a local tournament or where the pro teams would be practicing. It was like a drug for me and I just wanted more. With that my site started generating a huge following, I started seeing my photos on chat boards and people started asking me to come to events.

The next year started with the PSP LA Open in Pomona and I wanted to shoot on the field but was turned down for a pass. Luck for me it was poring rain and the refs did not really pay attention to field passes so after a bit of coaxing from Gary Balm (Paintballphotography.com) I just walked on the field without a pass. A few weeks later was the NPPL Huntington Beach event and again I was turned down for a field pass but after the LA Open I just took it upon myself to walk onto the field without a pass.

After the Huntington Beach event I figured that there had to be a way of getting on the field with a pass so I started emailing the NPPL every week until Camille finally answered one of my emails and cleared me for a pass at their Denver event. At this point I had never really traveled to an event nor even thought about just how much it was going to cost myself and to be honest it did not matter to me. I just had to go. It ended up being an even bigger event for myself than I imagined, this is where I met Kat who was also new to shooting paintball at the pro level.

Ever since the NPPL Denver event I have been attending pro events. Things picked up speed as chrono300.com became something I never intended it to, one of the largest paintball photo based sites in the world. With that came opportunities to begin to come in, working for magazines and ad work. I have now had pictures I've taken in every paintball magazine in the US and a few international ones. Please don't think this means the Michael has become some rich world famous photographer, I still pay for my trips to all of these events and it has cost me thousands of dollars.

The bottom line here is, after a few years of hard work in the paintball industry and countless hours on the field I have very little to show for it. Unless you count all of the friends that I have made along the way. I would not and will not give that up for anything, it really has been the best ride.