It's the end of May, the weather forecast is looking amazing on this particular day. It's rolling the dice to schedule advanced outdoor photo shoots here in the PNW. And by "advanced" I mean 2-3 days out. Yes, that's still considered risky for outdoor shoots here in the Spring.
Amazingly, it's been almost a year working with AmeRAWcan Bistro, creating their photography and marketing material. We've completed a handful of food shoots throughout that time for various projects. Recently they acquired their license to server alcoholic beverages, which for me, means another round of photography
The weather in the PNW... what can you say about it. It hasn't been... ideal to say the least. As a photographer, that can drive you a bit nuts, you can forget about scheduling anything outside of 48 hours with any confidence. But we schedule anyways, and it's like hitting the lotto in late spring if you schedule a week in advance and the clouds happen part at the right time for a brief photo shoot. I feel more like a meteorologist in the Fall and Spring seasons than a photographer.
I thought I'd write a quick post on ways to improve photo editing, as I'll be spending the next day or two editing myself. Above is a live view of my screen, starting the editing process with a senior photo shoot I captured the other day. Cameras are everywhere, and more and more people are finding themselves tweaking photos on the computer. So this post isn't just for hardcore photographers. The every day, just for fun photographer can really benefit from this post as well. Some of the tips are simple and some are for the more advanced photographer. This isn't the de facto "How to Become an Amazing Photo Editor." They are just some quick tips to help you along your journey. Either way, I think you'll all pickup a little something.
I wanted to take a moment to publicly thank the Paul C. Buff company, the makers of the AlienBee and Einstein studio strobes that I have been using for over 4 years now. This post isn't about what a great product they make, though I've always been 100% happy with their performance, and I have no doubt that they are the best bang for the buck when it comes to photo lighting gear. This post isn't about the fact that outside user error, not a single lighting unit or bulb has gone bad, and have been reliably popping countless times over those 4 years. My entire portfolio, aside from a shoot here or there where I got by using hot shoe flashes, were all composed with their lights and modifiers. This post is about their amazing customer service. Sure, there are a lot of great companies out there that make some pretty awesome things, but I believe when things go wrong, something breaks, and you have to call the manufacturers for some help... this is what separates the bad from the good, and the good from the spectacular. The Paul C. Buff team couldn't get a higher review from me, and here's my professional experience as to why. A little over 4 years ago, I received my first 4 AlienBees, shipped right to my door. One of the modeling lights didn't work (understandable, you can get a dud light or even the fact that they were shipped across the country and I'm sure bumped around a bit by the shippers). A ring to Paul C. Buff, no questions asked, shipped me a new one and didn't charge me a cent, not even shipping. It's important to mention that an American picked up the phone, was pleasant as could be, and completely reinforced all of the great things I've heard of the business even before I bought my lights. Years and hundreds of photo shoots later, those same light are still popping. My lighting family also grew, as I now own 9 lights made by Paul C. Buff. As you could imagine over hundreds of shoots, accidents are inevitable and happen from time to time. Between the wind, a spiderweb of cords (tripping hazards), and other contributing factors, the lights will take an occasional tumble to the ground. Most of my lights have some war wounds from their years of service, yet they keep on poppin'. My two big oopsies both occurred within about of a month from each other, with one light taking a very nasty and hard fall to the ground (thanks to the ever resilient wind), and another was unknowingly plugged into a 220 volt outlet (as opposed to the standard 110 outlet) which resulted in a frightening "pop" and a cloud of smoke. Both lights were down for the count so I sent them to PCB to get serviced. My thoughts at the time were not only how much it would cost, but IF they could even be fixed from the resulting damage.
A pixel is a pixel is a pixel... right? What is a pixel on my camera is a pixel on my computer which is a pixel of a digital or print file that I present to a photo client. True, there is no denying it, digital photographs are composed of pixels, lots of them, millions upon millions, each a single dot with a specific color representation, combining to make a final photograph. Since the birth of digital photography, photographers have been ever evolving to leverage post processing software to edit digital images. Every photographer uses these tools differently, some rely on them more than others, and I'd argue that some photographers are more graphic designers than photographers. But we are not going to get into those details today, a book could be written on those personal thoughts alone. Today I want to talk about something that has been eating at me for months, and it's bugged me so much that I felt that I finally needed to share it with you. I'm sure this post will upset some who are just as upset as I am about the topic I'm about to discuss. That's good! The people who are losing out are the ones who don't feel or say anything at all. This is my blog, it's been home to my personal and professional visual works, adventures, advice, and personal photographic thoughts for years. There are almost 300 blog posts. I try to be as real as I can with genuine thought. This blog isn't a marketing gimmick, it serves many purposes, ranging from visual entertainment to educational. I try not to speak out of line, and if I'm providing advice to my readership I do my best to ensure that information has integrity behind it. The one thing you will not experience reading here on my blog are lies and me feeding you, my clients and fellow photographers, a bunch of shit. I'm a photographer, I'm paid to take photographs of people. I've photographed just about every age a person could be and in a dizzying array of situations. I do edit my photos in a post processing application. I'm asked to do very normal things to photographs in post, and I'm asked by some clients to do some very disturbing things in editing their images. However, contrary to many photographers out there, my job is 95% done after I've taken the picture. I've put in the time and effort required to make the photograph great at time of capture, so my editing load is minimal. For other photographers, taking the picture is only 25% of the completion. They spend countless hours in post. But this isn't the "shit" that I'm talking about, the subject that has my feathers a bit ruffled.
I spent a couple hours with Bianca for her senior pictures. On the fringes of the rainy season, we lucked out and were handed a beautiful day to work with. Unfortunately, everyone else in Tacoma decided to spend the day outside as well, giving us a pretty busy background. The spots we chose were spent with well-timed captures where I found a clean, people-free background. I arrived to the location a bit early, as I usually do, to run through pre-scouted spots in the area. Light conditions change fast, and well... a location can look amazing one minute and completely lose it's luster in a blink of an eye. I quick jog through pre-scouted locations are always done immediately prior to a shoot, ensuring they are still ripe for the pickin'. Run and gun was the name of the game for this shoot. 10-20 clicks of the camera and we were off to the next spot. I wanted to capture six or so locations, so we got what we needed and moved on. 
PocketWizard radio triggers... I love 'em. 95% of the time I have zero issues and they are worth every penny spent on them. That's saying something too, because I own 7 of them. My current PocketWizard arsenal consists of: 4 - FlexTT5's, 1 - MiniTT1, 2 - PowerMC2's, 1 - AC3, and 3 - AC9's. There is one flaw I've found in the PocketWizard FlexTT5's hot shoe mount (the part that tightens to the camera end) is not built out of the strongest material. It performs just fine when mounted by itself to a camera to trigger other radios, however, if you slide a speedlite onto the Flex (it's intended use), the added weight and torque that the speedlite can apply to the Flex's mount can become too much and... it breaks, rendering that hot shoe mount useless. It's kind of shocking that PW didn't think this one through, or even make a change in future production of the product after what I'm guessing is a very large number of photographers having this issue. A speedlite/Flex rig can easily put a couple pounds of force on this single small piece of plastic (and especially stressful on the mount when the speedlite is situated sideways), and it's only a matter of time before each and every Flex hot shoe mount will fail. Why it's not metal to begin with is beyond me. Good news is that you can call PocketWizard up, tell them your problem, and they will send you a new mount to replace the broken one. The bad news is that it'll cost you $20 per replacement mount. The repair process is simple enough to do yourself in under 5 minutes, but frustrating that you have to do this to begin with.
There has been a few flareups in the news over the past six months or so where people have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to their rights as photographers. In most cases, it seems that the photographers actually knew their rights, however the law enforcement who wrongfully acted upon the photographers did not. Ironic? You bet. Us photographers are breeding like rabbits, we're everywhere, all the time. Anyone with a phone now has a camera in their pocket, ready for snapping at any time. This is all fine and dandy and everyone is happy, that is, until some kind of unexpected or uncontrolled event takes place. Photographers snap into action, doing what they do, taking photographs. Ignorant law enforcement wrongfully impede on the photographers rights in a multitude of wrongs - threatening, seizing photo gear, and in extreme cases, the damaging of gear or the abuse of the photographer. It seems that photographers are welcome until someone decides it's not ok and act unlawfully (most likely the offended/concerned person is in the wrong and doesn't want to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar). Photography and it's lawful boundaries seem to be a hot and reoccurring topic these days, ya know... since one out of every three people claim to be a photographer. Knowing your rights as a photographer is very important, and so important that I cover the topic in my beginner workshop, whether a student asks about it or not. There is a lot of grey area when it comes to the topic of rights, who has them,who doesn't, why, and when. To keep things simple, I'll just be talking about where you do and do not have rights to be taking photographs. It can easily be broken down into two sections - public and private property.
I don't know about you other photographers, but the vast majority of my photo shoot time is spent setting up and configuring lighting. There is a reason for that, right? Good lighting = good photograph. Carelessness = crappy light = crappy photo. It's simple math, really, but that math adds up fast in the form of a lot of pacing back and forth from shooting position to light. Unfortunately, this back and forth dance is necessary in order to get all the lights and their powers set correctly. It seems with the addition of each extra light that the overall setup time increases exponentially. What if there was a device that could control your speedlites and your studio strobes right from your camera? Good news for the PocketWizard shooters, there is. It's called the PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController. It works with MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 radio trigger system. Below is a video that goes into detail about the system and briefly discusses the power and convenience the AC3 will bring by adding it to the existing PocketWizard system. I'm sure after watching the video, you'll have all kinds of ideas on how this could improve your photo shoots. From my own experience I can tell you that the AC3 has doubled my shooting efficiency. If you shoot with the MiniTT1/FlexTT5 system, you are out of your mind if you don't integrate the AC3 into gear set... like now. It will make that big of a difference, I promise. [jwplayer mediaid="5161" width=700 height=418]
The Emergency Food Network organization has been a client for... three years now. I've really enjoyed working on a number of projects for them, some which have opened my own eyes to the really great contribution they make in the Tacoma and surrounding area communities. My favorite and most in-depth work so far with EFN was the video I created a couple years ago, you can check that out HERE. 
I don't want to get too McGyver-ie on you guys, 'cause I'm sure we've all seen the countless disasters of DIY (Do It Yourself) projects, especially in the photography field. People making soft boxes out of cardboard and tinfoil, for example. Some of these contraptions make sense, some don't come close, some require just as much money making your own crappy version of the original item (not to mention a week's worth of hours constructing it), and even in the end, if the duct taped frankenstein of a project actually does what it's supposed to, it will never scream "professional" and you would have to be an idiot use it on a professional photo shoot in front of a paying client. However, every once in a while, a little savvy with mods to existing and legitimate photo gear can workout in your favor, save some money, and produce great results. My off-camera lighting journey started in overdrive. It was go big or go home when it came to integrating lights in my shoots, meaning I started out and exclusively used larger studio strobes for my work (as opposed to using speedlites, also called hot shoes). Not that it was a regrettable choice, I love the big lights and I still use them for 75% of my work, but I invested heavily and exclusively into those lights and light modifiers. When it came to that other 25% of the time, when I'm not shooting commercial work or I don't need the horsepower from big lights, I wanted to use the way more convenient, smaller, and lighter speedlites. So I bought a handful of speedlites a couple years back for just those occasions. Aside from the initial expense of the speedlites, I also had to take into account all of the light modifiers. If I wanted the same type of control that I have with my strobe lighting set, would I have to go all out and purchase the speedlite variation of all the strobe medication gear to accomplish this? I owned like... 12+ light modifiers specifically to fit my studio strobes. I initially had no problem shelling out money for the strobe light modifiers, as big lights and big modifiers gave me awesome light, and I was willing to pay for it. Once I started researching speedlite specific light modifiers, my jaw dropped to find they cost just as much, if not more, money for them! I couldn't believe it. I knew that speedlites were very popular, but man, the photo market is all to wise to that fact, and all of us photogs are paying for it. Markup on small light gear for those tiny little speedlites is out of control.
I thought I'd post some more work I've recently done for London Couture. Along with doing their marketing photography, I also do their graphic design. This is an ideal situation for a photographer if they are capable graphic designers as well. It really helps marriage a complete, polished look when it comes to the final product. It's so important going into a photo shoot that I have my head wrapped around the final concept. Sure, someone can ask me to photograph a person or a situation, or... a person in a certain situation, however, unless I know what the photographs will ultimately be used for, I have no idea how to shoot it. I can shoot something that looks amazing, but could really fail to translate for a particular idea or even dimension of a graphic design. At that point, no matter how amazing your photos look, they could create a headache in the end when design comes into play. All the way down the the simple things, like knowing whether the photos will be used for a magazine ad or a website or both, which will determine whether the majority of my photographs will be a landscape or portrait layout (verticals are obviously conducive to magazine ads, and horizontals for web/digital display). So whether I'm doing the graphic design or I'm handing the photos off to another designer, you better believe I'm asking all kinds of questions so that everyone in the loop of production is very happy with what they have to work with. This make life SO much easier on the designer, and leaves my paying client with a very clean, professional product that didn't have to get hacked together with a digital chainsaw. A lot of commercial photography is shot on either a white or black background, reason being it's VERY easy to add more space to a design canvas if needed. Ex - shooting a model on white seamless will allow a designer to plop the image onto a white canvas any where they want, and no one is the wiser. You can add or subtract designing real-estate until the cows come home. With that said, you really don't have to shoot as consciously with your composition (you don't have to worry about leaving any negative space in the image for the addition of graphics and text). You can shoot nice and close, providing maximum resolution and detail, and giving a graphic designer one more reason to love working with you. Shooting on a true solid color is ideal for this editing flexibility, however, sometimes you want something different (even in the studio), or often times commercial photogs find themselves out in the wild shooting on-location. For these situations, it's key that the final concept be well-understood. And again, it's always a great thing if you are the designer and the photographer, as the layout is floating around in your head, and you can at times improvise even while shooting, as new design ideas pop up in your head and you can then shoot and frame for those ideas on the fly. A great luxury. Of course, if you are shooting for Nike or some huge name, the concept is concrete, which has been reviewed and ok'd by corporate big wigs. But if you are a smaller operation, you can get away with some... "creative flexibility" up until you shoot the last frame of the day.
Ok, here's a post for the photogs out there. This is the rig I decided to go with for my hiking trip to photograph the landslide project. Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's super important that when you know a day of shooting will be a little out of the ordinary that you ask as many questions as possible so that you can as prepared as possible. For this specific photo task, I knew the following:
Oh boy, where to start with this one... I guess we can begin with the original premise for this whole shebang that you'll see unravel on the blog in the next half year or so. I was approached a few months ago by fellow video creative and good friend, Andy Lahmann, to work on a large scale project with him. Western Washington University has a number of interesting and front-of-the-field type programs students are currently working within. The kind of programs and results that are definitely worth bragging about to some degree. WWU's idea is to generate a website bundled with video and photographic content that we be used to present these various programs to the public, alumni, and future university donors. Along with the website, they'll present the media via iPads while out and about talking to people of interest. One problem lay in their way - they need eye catching video and photos. Solution - Andy and myself. So, we've been assigned to make this stuff happen for them. Four of these programs are going to be our focus for the launch of this showcasing project. They range from out-in-nature geological to in-the-labs highly technical, and will place us in some interesting locations and situations to produce our visual work. First up to bat was a program centered around a geological phenomenon. Back in the 1930's, just outside the town of Bellingham, a large landslide started to take place. I say "started," because it's still going on, it's still sliding. Yes, this is a slow-motion, mile-long landslide 80 years in the making. But that isn't the weird part. It starts to get a bit odd when you analyze the water runoff that is flowing through the giant thing. Turns out that the sediment laden water contains amazingly high levels of asbestos. You know... that poisonous crap that was wildly popular in the groovy 1970's home construction, touted for it's fire resistance and insulating properties (among others). A rushing creek of water flows through the slide, picking up the asbestos and carrying it down to the surrounding valley. The contents of the creek are so dangerous that it's playing a large roll in the destruction/contamination of the farm lands below the hillside. So the earth mass keeps sliding, grinding-up and producing ample loose poisonous sediment (yummy), feeding the water, and playing a continual negative roll on the community. It's much like a glacier as it slowly moves across the earth. This is why the WWU geologist are out there, in fact, people from around the world have travelled there to study this anomaly, as it's apparently confusing the crap out of everyone as to why here and why not everywhere else. I guess this type of event is only happening in a couple spots in the world. And who said Bellingham is just a college town...
I conduct many shoots for London Couture, a rising vintage couture fashion business in Tacoma. We hold some type of photo shoot once week on average, so... they keep me pretty busy. They sell many styles of clothing, each speaking to fashion-minded people in varying ways. As described by my client, the designer of the clothing line for this particular shoot was by definition dark, utilizing the spectrum of colors that can be summed-up as dull and muted. It definitely wasn't a happy and warm clothing line. To meet client's needs I will often start off by asking them, "so, what does this look like in your head, what do you see, what 'hits home' as far as an environment for these items you are selling?" All feedback I received for this shoot pointed to an industrial look. To the shadiest part of town we go!
Since the announcement of the Canon 5DmkIII, there have been a lot of bloggers out there chomping at the bit to denounce the idea of spending the $3,500 to upgrade their current 5D2 to the new 5D3. It's as if they couldn't wait to say that the new 5D3 isn't even close to being considered for their own business. I hope you are not running a serious business, guys. Anyone who has used the 5D2 for a substantial amount of time would be happy to hand you a laundry list of faults where the 5D2 has disappointed over and over throughout the years. There may be a few people out there who work in ideal, happy, well-lit, never rushed, never found in challenged environments who may be looking at me like I'm crazy, but I'm sorry... if you think that the 5D2 is without any issues, you are the crazy one, and I challenge you to step out of your perfect world and shoot a couple weddings and tell me you have the same opinion. I know a lot of naysayers out there are looking at the megapixel count (the 5D2 with 21 and the 5D3 with 22) and going, "I don't get it, what's with the only one MP jump?" I think this is why a lot of people are shaking their heads at Canon when they were expecting something more when asked for 3500 clams. People, it's not about megapixel counts, and don't say that's not your reason for bitchin' because if the new 5D3 touted a 36MP spec, you'd have reserved your copy of the 5D3 faster than I can say the word "sucker." Simply put, for those with the adequate experience with the 5D2, I think that the 5D3 is the camera you always wanted in the mkII. Once you can look past the megapixel spec, you'll find that the 5D3 truly is a new camera from the ground up.
A few weeks ago marked the completion of the first Matty Photography advanced workshop. Unlike it's sister program, the beginner workshop, which has 3 runs under it's belt, the advanced class just completed it's maiden voyage. As with everything educational, going through a huge chuck of learning material for the first time with a class is like running the gauntlet. Is the material arranged in the best possible order, is it structured in a way that makes sense with easy to understand vocabulary, how much time should be allotted for each lesson and photo adventure, how many student questions will result from the material and how much time will that eat, etc. There is a lot to estimate into the timing, which will then drive the overall structure and amount of material. As all experienced photographers know, the more you stick your head down the rabbit hole of knowledge, the more you discover it goes on forever. You have to draw the curriculum line somewhere in the sand, decide what takes priority, and ensure that whatever you decide to cover will be properly addressed in class. For those who are in the dark about my workshops and are into photography, you should definitely out the workshop page by clicking on the 'workshops' button at the top of the page. This advanced workshop focuses on off-camera lighting. It teaches students about lighting, how it works, how to trouble shoot it, how to shift and mold qualities of light, etc. As far as the material goes, I think it went great. The photo shoot adventures... well, we will all want more time to shoot. I could set aside a whole day of just shooting and students would want more time. But you gotta draw the line somewhere, make sure concepts are grasped and demonstrated, and then move on. That's what the courses are for, creating a foundation of understanding, getting the gears greased, and then releasing them off into the wild so that they can begin their growth as a photographer. Sure, the courses will offer some opportunities for good photo taking, but by no means are the in-class shooting adventures designed to revamp someone's portfolio. After running through all of the shoots, I will be making some tweaks to make them run a little better and a bit more focused/goal oriented.
February was a happenin' month here at Matty Photography, like every month I guess. Aside from the usual photographic operations, February was the "month of knowledge," for both workshop students and myself. Two weekends out of the month went to a pair of Matty Workshops, one beginner and one advanced. More new photographers were released into the wild with a newfound understanding of how to capture light, and a couple experienced photographers left with a larger skill set in off-camera lighting. I'll get around to writing another detailed post about those here soon. The other two weekends were for my own enlightenment, with workshops focused more on the business side of operations, yuck! A lot of good things came out of though, and I'll have a lot of big news for you coming soon on all of that stuff. I thought I'd also share a couple photos that came out of February as well. Pictured above is baby Bruno with his proud parents. A fun little family, we shot a set of photos in the surrounding caverns in which my current studio resides (hint towards future news...), and then we did another quick round inside the studio. The kid shoots always have to go fast, they are a blur of entertaining clients, kids, and shuffling lighting gear. In the end, you hope you managed to capture a couple frames where the kids are looking in your general direction sans the all-too-popular confused face, and the parents are managing to be smiling and not blinking. The second subject you see here is Kayla, a senior in high school. I did roughly the same thing with this shoot - a few in the studio, a few outside the studio. I like to give my clients some variety.
