Author: Matt

02 Mar

Posted at 13:05h in Gear, Shoots
Hot shoe lighting has its moments, good and bad. There is no denying the convenience and mobility of speedlites over studio strobes, especially when a photographer spends the bulk of their shooting time on-location. Ditching the strobes and running with speedlites for a shoot literally empties out what is usually a gear-packed car. I can actually see out my back window! Hot shoe lighting is significantly smaller in size, lighter in weight, faster to setup and teardown, and usually translates to a quicker shoot. These are the things I love about speedlites. The other side of the coin are the dislikes, the things that can drive me nuts. Lack of power, misfires, and slow recycle times can get downright ugly at times when you start asking these lights to start doing some real work. My mentality on this may be a bit distorted, as I was spoiled by having the opportunity to start my lighting journey with studio strobes. I used AlienBees for years before ever even feeling the desire to want to use speedlites for my shoots. It was always a "go big or go home" situation for me. I wanted the power the strobes could give me if I needed it. This meant a car stuffed with 200 lbs of lights, cables, power packs, stands, and big light modifiers. It was a game of Tetris to get everything to fit in my car, literally. Big power came with the price of numerous trips back and fourth to the car to fetch bulky, heavy gear, cables running all over the place on-location, gear bags everywhere, and all of that had to be done in the reverse order when it came time to pack it all back up. It sucks, but it's worth it. In fact, it's "worth it" to still continue the same song and dance with all the strobe downsides to use them for 80% of my shoots. Ironically, even though I use my strobes on most location shoots, I call all of my strobe gear my "studio gear" and I call my speedlite gear my "mobile gear." So when I ask Alice, my amazing assistant, for a mobile light, it's kind of like a moment where I know she goes, "oh crap, he needs to pump out a photograph super quick," and urgency is automatically applied to the situation. It's funny but true, as most of my speedlite setups are very much run and gun. Seriously... most of the time when using hot shoes we don't even take the time to put the light on a stand, and Alice hand-holds as we continually move and reposition.

29 Feb

Posted at 12:26h in Gear, Info/News
There are countless photo apps popping up for phones, each one bragging about the addition of the now oh-so-played-out vintage filters you can apply. The last thing we need is another excuse for someone to think they are a creative photographer via one-click edit buttons. Ya know... the same edits even your 1-year-old can manage to accidentally apply while teething on the corner of your phone. They are all the same mindless app, driving the false sense of creativeness. News flash, if you have that app so do like... 100 million other people, and they have that same "creative" vintage button. Now don't you feel special. To be honest, at this point your phone photography would probably be more appealing and eye-catching on Facebook if you just stuck to standard photo edits, as everyone and their grandma are robotically mass producing the same EXACT edits as you. You'll practically be the only one with vibrant contrast and colors in your images if you go against the grain on this one. But let's get past these boring one-button edit "features," shall we? After all, in the end, you are still dealing with a point and shoot camera on your phone. It's the other end of the mindless droning of "photography" these days. Of course PnS cameras have the ability to focus, expose, and judge the rest of the variables in order to create a borderline tolerable image. Sure, PnS's have the ABILITY to do all of this stuff for us, but hardware and software developers of phone cameras decided that the cameras WILL do all of the deciding for you, and you don't get a say in the photo-taking affair. Just point and click, you get what you get, and you're stuck with the computer in the driver seat 100% of the time. No surprises, this approach left us with 100 images with maybe a couple falling under the category of "acceptable," the rest being a joke, and proof that computers are not good photographers.

21 Feb

Posted at 15:37h in Shoots
High resolution sensors and unbelievable lens optics, they are the last thing you want getting dirty. When we bring up the topic of dust, it's usually in a manner of how to get rid of it and keep it from being a factor in the first place. Lots of attention is given to minimize any encounters with the pesky stuff, and there is a huge market for sensor and lens cleaning tools. It's true, the last thing I want to see is dust covering my photo equipment. There are times that... well, all of that dust in the air, constantly finding it's way to thwart your quest for optical perfection, can actually come in handy. In fact, sometimes this stuff we've grown to curse at can have a power influence in our imagery. It may, if I dare mention, occasionally take a photo destined for failure into a successful capture. Light, it's an elusive medium. Unless it's bouncing off of something (and reflecting into our eyes), we just don't see it. Light travels in a straight line, so unless there is something to redirect it into your peepers it'll continue on it's merry way, and your retina are none the wiser. It fails to translate into something we or our cameras can see unless it's got a medium to collide into. It's the reason you can walk into an old barn or other location where there is an abundance of particles in the air and you can see these beautiful beams of light entering from a window or other light source. Light is rocketing through the air and impacting with dust, reflecting light into your eye. There are of course other mediums the light can be flying through that can reveal it's path, like fog or clouds, etc. You gotta have something in the air to allow this light to be clearly visible. Specialty light, like some lasers are a completely different topic, so what we are talking about here are the types of light photographers are usually dealing with (the sun, other typical ambient sources, and flash lighting).

15 Feb

Posted at 12:03h in Just for Fun

A quick little post on some photos I took during the winter storm we had here in the PNW a couple weeks ago. With significant snow fall (for this area anyway) for a number of days, coupled with temps that yo-yo'd above and below freezing,...

11 Feb

Posted at 21:55h in Shoots

Amerawcan Bistro has a lot of different things going on, one of those being classes to educate the public on the benefits of raw food nutrition. The goal was to photograph just the basic, common elements of what goes into a lot of the meals....

07 Feb

Posted at 11:15h in Info/News

The PNW has been seeing some amazingly nice weather, and the timing couldn't have worked out better. Last weekend was another Beginner Workshop, held down at my studio. As we always do for workshops, we spend a little bit of time covering new material in-class...

22 Jan

Posted at 15:28h in Gear
Conducting a lot of my work on-location, I need to pack my lighting gear around to some very random, very remote locations. I also shoot the majority of my work with larger studio strobes (I use AlienBees), rather than the smaller hot shoe lights. As much as I'd like to utilize my set of speedlites more often, especially on shoots where I'm left packing gear over a long distance, they just don't pack the power I'm usually demanding from my lights. You might be thinking, "hey, if you have both sets of gear and have the choice, well... that's easy, go with the AlienBees." Contrary to AA battery-powered, convenient, lighter, fit-in-your-bag speedlites, packing and deploying AlienBee lights on a location shoot can quickly become a pain in the ass. With speedlites, you have the small light, a stand, and maybe a light modifier. With Alienbees (and all studio strobes for that matter), you've got power cables, reflector dishes, carrying cases, larger/heavier light modifiers, and power packs (to power the lights). By default, AlienBees want wall power to keep them happy and firing. If you want to take these things out in the middle of nowhere you gotta bring big power with ya.

21 Jan

Posted at 16:11h in Gear, Tips & Techniques
It's easy to forget about. You use it for just about everything in life, you rely on it more than you know, but might not even know how inaccurately you are viewing and editing the digital world. Out of all of the gear photographers lust over, camera bodies, lenses, and the thousands of dollars spent to acquire these light capturing tools, most forget about one of the cheapest and most important pieces of gear they need. If you are a photographer and have not properly calibrated your computer monitor, you need to stop editing photos and get on this. I repeat, do not edit another photo before taking the steps to ensure proper monitor calibration.

14 Jan

Posted at 15:28h in Info/News

Another round of Matty Photography workshops are coming this February, both beginner and advanced workshops. More information and registration can be had at http://mattyworkshops.com These workshops are great for just about anyone interested in photography, a little something for everyone. Learn how to master your camera...

12 Jan

Posted at 22:40h in Gear, Tips & Techniques
Reflectors and diffusers are typically the first modifiers photographers buy when they start experimenting with light manipulation. It's a great thing... you've taken the step to start playing with light, rather than just throwing your arms up in defeat when you can't seem to achieve favorable light conditions in a given shooting situation. A reflector/diffuser combo is a very wise choice, regardless of your existing gear status, as they are useful all the time and in combination with other lighting tools. I think that at times people feel that "controlling light" translates to blasting a flash in someone's face and calling it a day. Adding flash lighting or redirecting ambient light with a reflector is a way more delicate process than you might think. It doesn't have to be a huge, dramatic change in the overall exposure. Just adding a little of spark to your main light, or filling-in shadows to bring some more detail into the composition can make a night and day difference. It's not a game of miles or even feet, we are talking about inches. Small increments of addition/subtraction of light to make all the world of difference in your portrait work. Here are a couple thoughts, more of a checklist, to keep in-mind when you go out to make this purchase.

03 Jan

Posted at 19:45h in Tips & Techniques
Every photo gig has it's own requirements when it comes to clothing. Sometimes the choice on what to wear boils down to simple logistics. No-brainers like warm clothes for shooting wildlife, night, or winter photography. Maybe swimsuits and sandals for beach and water shooting so you don't have to worry about soaking nice clothes and shoes. But most of us photographers spend our time photographing people. Those people hold events they need captured by us, and that is where the major gray area is, as far as selecting attire for these events. So, this article will focus on portrait photographers and my perspective on what makes sense for a few different situations you may find yourself in while working for various clients. That is key... "what makes sense." Dress to impress, dress to perform, or somewhere in the middle. Does the event even call for you to fret over this? What's the weather like? What's your gear situation? What's expect of you? Know your client. It always helps asking the client some details about the event just to get your head wrapped around the basics, get the feel for things, and you can more confidently make a call. There are a lot of other questions that you need to ask yourself from the perspective of your job tasks which will drive your attire as well.

01 Jan

Posted at 15:17h in Shoots
Last June, I headed down to Toledo, WA, my old stompin' grounds where I attended high school. It would be the first of a couple trips down to Toledo, working on a newly birthed project I formed alongside good friend and video talent, Andy Lahmann. It was a project focused on the community, with a lot of the attention going towards the high school students. To get caught up on the story, here are a couple posts to read. Here (click),  here (click), and here (click). Now, if you are up to speed... I spent a day capturing high school students in a number of activities (this series of photos called the "Pride Series"), the photos turned out very well, especially considering the day was a complete run-and-gun operation. I think we teed-up 8 photo shoots during one school day. We'd walk into a new room or sporting location, with never having worked on the photo ideas prior to that moment. Just show up, come up with something real quick, setup lights, pop the photo, pack-up and move on to do it again at another location. The photos received a great response, we made large prints and banners of the photos and hung them in the school. It was predictable that the photos would peak the interests of the high school students, as the photos were of them, however, there was a surprisingly positive response from both the middle and elementary schools. Prints were made for the other schools as well, and the kids loved them. Simply put, the photos did exactly what we wanted them to - generate interest, and ultimately getting the students online, where the website and forum we setup for this project awaited them, and get them talking and involved. You gotta take your information where the eyes are if you want it to be seen, and we all know that today that's online. 

29 Dec

Posted at 17:30h in Info/News

A new wordpress theme, coding/format changes, portfolio integration, and the porting of 250 blog posts later...

18 Dec

Posted at 21:08h in Info/News, Video
Phew, just finished editing some videos to advertise the photography workshops. Next batch of workshops are in February. For more info on that, click the 'workshops' link at the top of the page.

12 Dec

Posted at 12:13h in Gear, Tips & Techniques
It's a topic photographers start to tackle as they continue to develop their skills, continue to tackle new subject matter, and continue to tackle the processes in order to capture better photographs. Of course, all of these photographic avenues we try to improve ultimately trickle down to the same solution, much like the branches of a tree to the trunk, and that is - the betterment of capturing light. Each photograph - a simple exposure to light. There are literally an infinite number of situations in which a camera can be asked to best capture that pesky stuff we call "light." Some of these situations can best be captured by simply fully understanding how to use a camera and how to spin the dials, some may call for the use of a reflector, diffuser, or even an addition of a light source, and some require the introduction of a filter to best capture the moment. In this article, we'll be taking a look at the latter, an in-depth look at the various filters available to photographers, which ones to avoid, correct and incorrect uses, and when to best use them. The importance of using filters in your work will largely depend on the type of photography you capture. They can have a very dramatic or very little effect on your image, depending on your knowledge of how and when to use them.

09 Dec

Posted at 11:07h in Just for Fun, Tips & Techniques
A question I posed to Facebook users back in October - How many lights were used in the photograph above? Extra bonus points for taking a stab at light modifiers used on said number of lights. I created this photo strictly as a visual aid for an article I wrote back in October as well (click here for that post). Taking the little side project further, I was curious to see if anyone following me on Facebook would get close to the light setup used to make the photo. I would have to say Justin was the closest guess, as he went into some pretty good detail on lighting position. Reproduction of the "real" world is a funny thing in the photo and video field. I guess we have commercial photography and the movie industry to thank for our completely unrealistic view on reality nowadays. What I mean by that, is that artificially lighting most setups as if it were 100% replicating a natural occurrence flat-out looks bad in a final photograph. Walking around in real life, we see things, accept them as beautiful, and we appreciate them and go on with life. However... when it comes to looking at a photograph that was done well, in respect to holding true to artificially re-creating only natural forms of light found in the world, we get REALLY picky. "Oh, I don't like how that person's head isn't edged-out by backlighting and cannot be made-out from the background, " or "the shadows are not filled-in enough for me." We don't know what "natural" even looks like anymore. It's true, and a comment on the Facebook photo proves it, with a user guessing that only light from the computer screen is lighting this entire photo (not their fault, this is the general public's view of light and what they are exposed to with every photo and video professional produced). And with today's overstimulating, commercialized, uber marketing online world, we demand to see the "real world" in a not-so-real situation with perfect beauty lighting on faces, proper rim lighting, and fans blowing a models hair back... now that's REAL life (I kid)! Every once in a while, we photographers can get away with a "natural" lighting approach, and get away with a people pleasing photo, but not often. We usually have to cleverly light it to ensure all of the visuals in a composition are well-lit for proper attention and detail.

08 Dec

Posted at 12:00h in Shoots
Rewind about two months ago, I was in the middle of photographing the 2012 Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar. Before you roll your eyes, "oh boy, another bikini barista calendar, how lame," you might wanna look into this one. I'd agree with you about nine times out of ten that the "normal" creation for such ideas (skimpily-clad women calendars) are poorly conceived, produced, and constructed, however... that's not how the folks at Smokin' Hot Espresso do business. Fortunately, they are the one out of the ten that want to do things right, and not produce something that was all shot in one day, and in a studio no-less. For some reason, the pattern of recent years has gone something like this with these kind of productions - take girl, prop said girl with minimal clothing, toss her on some random/boring background, run her through the same standard poses we've seen since the beginning of time, and photoshop the crap out of the photos in post production. Rinse and repeat. After all, it's ALL about the girl, and production value doesn't REALLY mean anything... right? A picture of a girl is a picture of a girl... Um, no. 12 months, of girls, in boring, unimaginative poses and situations, in a studio... yuck. Who would want to buy that? Luckily, Smokin' Hot and myself are on the same page. It's beyond making a buck. It's about making something that is fresh, fun, and a treat for your customers. Our calendar is more of a end-of-the-year thank-you gift to the customers for their business. ROI (return on investment) wasn't the driving factor, not one bit, and that's why I really like working on this project. This calendar is full of the same baristas who have made the customers coffee every day. How cool would it be to hand those same customers a calendar with the baristas in fun outfits and situations? We wanted to produce something on a level that would leave us knowing that no other similar business in the area would come close to matching.

02 Dec

Posted at 15:50h in Shoots
The commercial side of the photog biz has been consuming most of my time for the last few months, but I did find some time to squeak-in some personal portrait sessions. Most of these photos were taken in or around my studio in downtown Tacoma during Oct and Nov. "My studio" is actually the building space in which my studio space is in. I don't mind shooting classic studio photos, but if I get the chance, I take every opportunity to shoot outside of the studio, really try to make something new with each shoot, and the studio isn't exactly conducive to that mission. Especially with personal portrait photography, it's not for a magazine or design, and I think most people will be looking for a little more flavor in the background of their photos. That is where the indoor space around the outside of my studio comes in handy, especially this time of the year, when the last thing you want to do is spend prolonged amounts of time outside in the wet and cold.

27 Nov

Posted at 12:14h in Behind the Scenes, Video
The 2012 Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar is complete. You'd think my job is done when I put the camera away from the final photo shoot. Not even close. A huge portion of work follows. Rewind a couple years ago, when I created the first calendar with the business, I also created a behind the scenes video. The video played at the calendar release party, online, etc. Everyone really loved the video addition to the project, so this time around, it was specifically asked for (to be included). Every photo shoot we had video cameras rolling too. What that equated to was over 20 hours of footage for me to rummage through after we were done shooting the calendar. It was a rush to finish the production of the calendar, then the design of the calendar, and then... with a week before the release party, a BTS video. To the editing room I go... a pile of footage awaiting. Can you get a tan from a computer screen? If so, I should have a really nice "glow" right about now.

19 Nov

Posted at 11:46h in Gear, Tips & Techniques, Video
Here is a video Q & A for those of you photogs who want to start flirting with off-camera flash. This isn't a video about how to use lighting and everything that goes with it. It's a simple recommendation on the starting block gear to acquire to start your lighting journey. The good news is that TTL will help you ease into this journey (if you are using hot shoe lights), so you don't have to be an absolute lighting wizard to pull of simple lighting execution.