Today,  I was saddened to learn of the passing of Robert Mizerek on September 29.  The Miz was a microstock legend of sorts who possessed a unique style and acerbic wit.  I first noticed "Rjmiz" a couple years back and bookmarked his Dreamstime portfolio as a source of inspiration and awe.  His work was bold and unusual.  Strong concepts with beautifully saturated colours, with graphic silhouettes, numbers, hands, time pieces, anything but ordinary.  He once said he could take a picture of any old thing lying around his house and squeeze a concept out of it.  And to top my hat to the guy, it would likely become a best seller too.

It seems that everyone knew The Miz.  He was a larger than life character who frequented many microstock forums.  Even if you loved him, you were sure to butt heads upon occasion.  He was known as confrontational with a warped sense of humor that leaned toward visuals of dirty underwear.

I looked through messages of condolences, and some words jumped out:

Controversial, priceless, cranky, great tutorials, crazy, humor, expert, inspired, taught me, outspoken, opinionated, colorful character, caustic, dedicated artist, offbeat, wacky, provocative

And that was The Miz exactly as I knew him.

To many of us, Robert was a great and generous teacher.  He freely posted tutorials on his website Unnatural Photos and shared the links on microstockgroup.  I can say with certainty that I learned more about PhotoShop from Miz than I learned from any other source.  But inevitably, his tutorials were met with criticism by a few seemingly "expert photoshop users"; and with his screw-you-then attitude, he informed us that we'd have to come to his website if we wanted to watch his videos.

But sadly now, his website was undergoing a change and it states "We should be up and running in 1 or 2 days".

Bless you Robert:  your voice will live with me forever.  Thank you for teaching me.  For humouring me.  For sometimes annoying me. 

Book of Condolences.

Photo Illustration by Rjmiz: