Michael Plyler  is a self- taught photographer who lives in Springdale, Utah with his wife, Sandy, Sadie the dog, and their cat, Annabel. Michael works in large format (mostly 4 x 5), and does all his own film processing, printing (to the highest archival standards) and even hand mills raw alder and fabricates his own exquisite, ebony-stained frames.   In 1993-94 Michael received one of two prestigious Visual Artist Fellowships from the Utah Arts Council. The juror who awarded the fellowship was Mr. Alan Fern, past director of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. Michael has  been photographing the Maya of Guatemala since 1982 and has made some fifteen trips there to record this retiring and fascinating culture.   Michael has also traveled extensively in Spain and Italy and has images from those travels on this site. While most of his past work has been almost exclusively in black and white, in January, 2005 he completed a large body of color work whose subject matter consists of the colors and textures of a series of door and wall details in Guatemala.   Michael has taught photography workshops with his own Utah Canyon Workshops, through the University of Nevada–Las Vegas Division of Continuing Education, Santa Fe Community College, and most recently through Zion Canyon Field Institute in Zion National Park. Michael is currently the director of the Field Institute in addition to being their primary photographic instructor. Michael has lead photographic tours in Guatemala, Spain, and Italy.   Michael has also received commissions from the Guatemalan Tourist Institute, Utah Humanities Council, the St. George Art Museum, and a  Mayor’s Award in the Humanities for his portrait work in a joint project with writer, Logan Hebner entitled “Southern Paiutes; A Portrait.”. The first book featuring Michael's photographs is entitled "Pioneer Voices of Zion Canyon" and was released in October 2006 and is available from the Zion Canyon Field Institute web site or by calling 1-800-635-3959.