The night of Mike McGovern's wake in Towson, a cataclysmic rainstorm knocked out power to the funeral home. The mourners stayed put, swapping favorite Mike memories by candlelight. Everyone commented about how the prank-loving photographer must be up there laughing at this turn of events, perhaps even causing them. "He must have just needed more time in the darkroom," someone quipped.

Nobody I knew ever called him "Michael." Mike was always Mike: genuine, unpretentious, a little goofy sometimes. He was the most generous, considerate, and giving person I have ever known, and also one of the most fun. My memories of him will always involve ugly Hawaiian shirts, Natty Boh, and the grin that would light up the room whenever one of life's more absurd moments appealed to his idiosyncratic sense of humor.

The only absurdity apparent right now is that Mike is gone. On a long-anticipated vacation to Alaska, where he went to indulge his twin passions of photography and kayaking, there was an accident: On Aug. 22, a sudden storm over Prince William Sound apparently drove Mike's kayak onto the rocky shoreline. Although I am absolutely heartbroken to lose him, it was in a sense a fitting end for an avid outdoorsman and talented photographer: He died in one of the most beautiful places on Earth doing something he loved. He was 38.

Longtime City Paper readers will be familiar with Mike's work; he was a CP contributing photographer from 1988 to 1994. More recently, he shot for Baltimore magazine and for national publications, including Time and Newsweek. He was also recognized locally for his dreamlike photo collages, which he meticulously assembled by hand and showed in exhibitions, including last year's Artscape. (Some of his best work can be sampled at his Web site).

One of his most memorable images, and one he was very proud of, was the luminous portrait of Frank Manley, a grizzled sea-captain type whose face, wreathed in pipe smoke, graced the cover of the Feb. 7, 1992 City Paper. For the accompanying feature, called "Sitting Pretty," Mike and then-CP writer David Dudley spent 16 hours chronicling a day in the life of a bar stool in Fells Point's Cat's Eye Pub.

Dudley recalls the experience fondly. "We drank at least a beer an hour that day. Despite his growing intoxication, Mike remained a professional throughout. Mike was incredibly adept at photographing someone while I was interviewing them--he was able to set people completely at ease and make these amazing, revealing pictures that brought out an element of their humanity. . . . It's a rare ability. He was the easiest guy in the world to work with, and he always took the right picture at the right time. He always caught just the right moment."

Mike gave unstintingly of himself to friends, family, and strangers, whether grocery shopping for elderly neighbors, planting trees in Patterson Park, or shooting copy slides of friends' artwork (and refusing payment). He was generous with advice, contacts, and the loan of extremely expensive equipment to fledgling photographers.

But the most moving evidence of how Mike's generosity touched everyone around him is literally hanging on his house. He used to photograph the kids in his East Baltimore neighborhood, giving away hundreds of prints to those who usually had very few pictures of themselves and their friends. When these kids heard about Mike's death, they turned his stoop into a spontaneous shrine, with notes, flowers, and a big red banner reading DEAR MR. MIKE, WE'LL MISS YOU. So will I.

Mike McGovern's family requests that donations in his memory be sent to the memorial fund established for his father: The John M. McGovern, M.D., Oncology Support Foundation, c/o Greater Baltimore Medical Center, 6701 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21204.