Mackender bought his first 35mm Minolta SRT102 in 1976 which triggered a lifelong love of shutter release work and play. Between then and 1989, he went through two SRT102 bodies and also shot with a Pentax 6x7. You can view this work in the 20th Century area.

After a ten plus year hiatus, he got his hands on a Nikon D1X which opened up a whole new world of possibilities. His digital work ranges from shooting virtual reality content and panoramas with his work at the University of Arizona, a series of Topographic images that continues the work he began in the 1970's, the Composites which draw from a combination of his scanned negatives, snapshots, HDR imagery and a large collection of scanned objects and the Digified work, which falls through the cracks between Topographics and Composites. You can view this work in the Digital Age area.