Matty Blog

25 Jan

Posted at 18:01h in Shoots
matty_1.6.11_ 008 Smokin' Hot Espresso, one of my regular business clients, asked me to come up with a flyer for their upcoming charity event, 'Bikini Bowling.' As soon as they popped the question, "can you design it?" I knew exactly what I wanted to do. "Give me in the bowling alley with one of the baristas and you'll have a great flyer," was my instant response. This is a fundraising event for a fellow who is going through his third bout of cancer. It's very generous of Smokin' Hot to donate their time, creating a fun evening to raise money to help pay for all the medical expenses.

21 Jan

Posted at 19:23h in Events
matty_1.15.11_ 064 At least it seemed so at Richard's 50th birthday party. And when I say party... it really was a party. I don't think anyone would have guessed this was a birthday party if they stumbled in, it was the next level of party. The event was held at the Pacific Grill event center. I'd say that the space comfortably holds 125ish people, but Richard is a pretty popular guy. I would have pegged the attending number around 250+. That meant standing room only for a good number of people, and limited space for me to work. It was all good though, everyone had a great time, and the limited space made everything a bit more exciting. The shots below were the first two of the evening, and probably my favorite. Richard's father, who lives in another part of the country, was not supposed to be in attendance, however, he made the trip and was there to surprise his son. Here are two consecutive frames - Richard walking in like he owns the place ;), and then when his father walks around the corner. Love the second shot and how it is framed, father with arms out. It tells a great story.

12 Jan

Posted at 21:39h in Shoots
matty_1.2.11 164 Spent a couple hours working with Tomasi, owner and designer of Tiare Floral Design, as we shot a handful of awesome boutineer creations he put together. The idea of the shoot is to give future customers a little taste of what Tomasi can do for formal event floral menswear. He's looking at using these photos to assemble a photo book. About a dozen boutonnieres to shoot, mixing them with different clothing, locations, and a variety of close and wide shots for each. I've been working with Tomasi for quite some time now, but all of the shoots so far have been strictly floral designs. This was the first go-around with integrating a model in with the flowers. It's something that I've been wanting to do with Tomasi since our first meeting.

09 Jan

Posted at 15:25h in Events, Shoots
matty_12.12.10 017 Wow, ok... the last and final installment to this whole shebang, the trash the dress shoot. We met-up the day after the wedding, around sunset. Leeann and Daymeon's condo was just down the block from mine, so we just met at the beach that at across the street. Now, these might be my favorite shots from the whole week. It was my first 'trash the dress' shoot, so I was pretty excited. The scene was pretty funny. We roll up, girl in wedding dress, guy with big camera, and Alice (my assistant) walking around to a good-sized mobile softbox. Toss girl with big white dress into the surf and everyone walking the beach stops to watch. There were actually other groups down there taking pics of family and friends. Before you know it, they have turned their cameras on us, taking pics of us doing our thing. Before you knew it, a crowd had gathered, with probably 30 sets of eyes on the shoot.

09 Jan

Posted at 14:14h in Events, Shoots
matty_12.11.10 525 Getting tired of these wedding posts yet? This is the second-to-last one, so hang in there, cause this is the good stuff! Yes, by that I mean the lighting stuff. Towards the end of the wedding reception, I pulled Leeann aside to get some "fun photos." I had been eyeing the alter they got married under ever since I arrived early that day. I knew it would make a great location to work-in some light, and make some interesting compositions. Started simple, with one light, 2'x2' softbox for front light. Then added some edging details to both the bride and flowers with a bare backlight directly behind Leeann.

09 Jan

Posted at 12:34h in Events
matty_12.11.10 378 Pictured above are Leeann and her best buds. It's great when you see a group of friends stick together, even 10 years after high school. Sure, new friends will come and go along the years, but there is just something about those high school friends that makes it special. Soon after the portraits were wrapped, the sun dipped below the sea, leaving torches, chandeliers, and candles to light the reception.

08 Jan

Posted at 15:19h in Events, Shoots
matty_12.11.10 348 Ok, so getting into the stuff I LOVE to do, setting up some fun shots, and bringing in some lighting. The formal portraits. Got Leeann and Daymeon on the beach as the sun was setting. Even though we had some pretty thick cloud cover, we got some fun colors in the sky. Knocked these out in 5 minutes or less. The sun was setting and I had to get the couple back to their party!

08 Jan

Posted at 13:49h in Events
matty_12.11.10 249 Rain, the only hiccup in an otherwise perfect wedding, slowed to a sprinkle around 5pm. Originally set to kickoff at 4, the ceremony was pushed about an hour. The officiate began the ceremony with a couple blows of a conch shell. A great touch, but I couldn't help but giggle a little bit. All I could think about was that ridiculous Spongebob character, Mermaidman. He blew a conch and yelled, "sea creatures, assemble!" Anywho... with the sound of the conch, and Daymeon waiting for his bride in the alter, Leeann started to make her way down the path.

04 Jan

Posted at 21:06h in Events
matty_12.11.10 185 Spent a couple shutter clicks with both bride and groom in the dressing rooms. The beach house on the property was icing on the cake to an already great location. The bride prepared herself in a room that had this awesome bed, had all kinds of drapery and style to it. Naturally, that's where I placed here for a few shots. Of course... once you are all done up in a dress like this, flopping down onto a bed is messy, so the girls helped her out, got a great pic of that.

03 Jan

Posted at 20:51h in Events
matty_12.11.10 135 Upon arriving to the wedding location, it was like something out of a movie. You know... those weddings that make you go "pfff, that doesn't happen in real life." There are literally 40-50 people working on setting up the wedding location. A dozen large work vans parked in the driveway of the property, you don't even consider they are all for this one event. As I opened the gate to the property, I quickly realized that, yes, all these vehicles, people, and resources are all here JUST for this. Running around like worker bees, you could literally watch it all assemble in front of your eyes. All dressed in color coordinated shirts, as to differentiate the various job duties. A half dozen people assigned to just arranging the floral designs, a team of cooks, a team for setting up furniture, etc. All this for a wedding with 24 attendees. Of course, having CNN around pays off, and the coordination company pulls some strings, and upgrades every feature of the wedding. Let me just say, this was a difficult job. No, not as in, shooting the wedding "job." The job after it is all said and done, the job of selecting the "picks" of the bunch to give the newlywed couple. It was literally the coolest place and wedding arrangement I'd ever seen. Naturally this led to WAY more pictures than I would have liked to filter through. Of course, all of the photos turned out pretty darn good, I mean... look at this place! Hence my breaking the wedding into a series of posts. Even now that I've gone through and made the selects and shipped the photos off to the couple, it's hard for me to try and write one or even two posts on this experience. Too many good things in this bunch. Hey, it's a photo blog, get ready for some pics!

01 Jan

Posted at 15:14h in Events, Shoots
matty_12.11.10 029 The first stop of the day, Leeann's condo, to capture the bride and bridesmaid getting all snazzied-up. A girl has to look good on her wedding day, right? It was the first set of shutter clicks of the day, just a few of the thousands to be taken before I called it a day. Like I said in the last post, with CNN there to video the wedding, the wedding coordination company was pulling out all the stops, everything that Leeann and Daymeon (bride and groom) had arranged for the wedding months ago all got multiplied by the coordination company so they looked perfect for CNN (they did a pretty darn good job too, they got this event about as close to perfect as possible). That meant, among a slew of other free upgrades for the couple, Leeann had a duo of hair/makeup artists following her around all day. Not a bad perk, eh?

31 Dec

Posted at 13:31h in Events, Shoots
matty_12.9.10 120v2 A wedding, in December, in Maui. This gig was more than I could have asked for, timing, location, everything... It was a location and setup that was too good to be true. Stop for a second and imagine a tropical location, a place that is literally perfect for your dream wedding, now paint the picture. I'd bet the farm the picture in your head doesn't have anything on this place. In many ways it felt like a dream just standing there, able to be a part of the whole thing. It's a beach house, tucked right on the beach, and all you hear are the waves as they crash over the black rock formations and sand.

19 Dec

Posted at 14:38h in Events
matty_12.5.10 064 I covered a fundraising fashion show for Swish, a salon in downtown Tacoma. It was short and sweet, but a lot of cool hair and makeup concepts, the people at Swish definitely are on their game. It was my first visit there, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. It's a cool place, has a nice, fresh vibe as you enter. Lots of fun colors and things spread around the space, a location that I'd actually like to shoot in. I spent a couple minutes taking shots of the staff getting the girls ready. I've started taking a new approach with covering events... As much as I like to not use any lighting for events, as I feel that it's much more of a documentary approach to the photography rather than a staged shoot, but a lot of the times the lighting is just bad. Let me take that back... not bad, but terrible. Lighting is either so dim that I have to make adjustments to the camera to counter, and I get grainy images, or the lighting is really harsh, forming terrible shadows on the subjects. This location was half and half, the salon area had decent lighting, but the runway location what about the worse I'd ever seen. Hence the first time I started working with an assistant roaming alongside me with a light. More specifically, a hot shoe flash unit stuffed into a 2' x 2' softbox. Lots of people and busyness, so no light stands here. We were moving too quickly, so Alice, my assistant, hand-held the lighting rig. This gave me incredible flexibility and speed to execute quick, off-the-hip shots that turned out pretty good. Shots that look nice and crisp, and allowing a bit of lighting control over my rather out-of-control environment. If you are interested in this highly mobile lighting stuff, I have a post coming very soon that goes into great detail on this topic (also happens to be the same setup I used for the shoots on the Maui trip). Now back to the event...

14 Dec

Posted at 16:52h in Just for Fun
mattyAndyWave Still in Maui, loving every minute of it. The wedding event, as well as the trash the dress shoot, are over (pictures on this coming later this week). We scheduled a couple extra days to vacation in paradise after all the wedding busyness before we head back to the mainland. Anywho... had a fun story to share with you all today. Pictured above is myself (left) and my good friend, Andy (right). Yes, that is a wave coming right at us, and yes, it was quite a few feet taller than we were. Maui had just been slammed with a monsoon. Heavy rains and winds reformed the beach overnight, creating to what Andy and I were to soon find out the hard way - very high, hard hitting waves that only left a few inches of water for you to land in when the wave punished you. This was... about wave 4 or 5, and the biggest and last one we decided to try and take-on that day. Water, it's a pretty powerful force. Clearly something Andy and I didn't have a full respect for until we were completely owned and nearly drowned. We were in about the worst point for this thing too. As it hit, we were both instantly at it's mercy. It sent me directly to the floor, hitting so hard it knocked out any air that was presently in my lungs (which was most needed at this moment in time), and put me in a tumble of which I couldn't tell you how many times I rolled as I was still in the middle of the aquatic carnage. Andy didn't fair much better, as his body board was wedged under his arm and the sea floor, the water attempting to dislocate his shoulder.

10 Dec

Posted at 19:43h in Info/News, Just for Fun

Indeed, love is in the air. Daymeon and Leeann are gettin' hitched tomorrow, and you can see the excitement in their faces. I visited the wedding location yesterday for some quick scouting. The picture above is the private beach that is literally 15 feet from...

05 Dec

Posted at 11:49h in Shoots
matty_11.21.10 185 Tomasi, owner and designer for Tiare Floral Design, booked me for another shoot a couple weeks ago. We've worked on a handful of projects together, but the past shoots had been more focused on floral pieces he had designed. This shoot was about all of the raw materials used for the collective pieces, with the idea that we can showcase all of the different flower elements Tomasi uses in his work. With this showcased on his soon-to-come new website, it will give clients the option to pick and choose different elements, and with that info, Tomasi can create with the selected elements. The main objective with this shoot was to get close and personal with the different flowers. Enter the 100mm macro lens. This entire shoot was executed with this lens, and aside from a couple longer shots, I consistently maintained only 1-6 inches between the lens and the flowers. It was all about the detail, the color, and showing how spectacular these exotic flowers really are. Tomasi hand picks and has the flowers delivered to him from all over the world, so these are not the kinda of stuff you'll see sitting in your local Safeway.

28 Nov

Posted at 17:06h in Events
matty_10.30.10 007 It's when these annual events come back around each year that really freaks me out. I get the call to come photograph again and it blows me away it's already been a year since the last time I covered the event. I'm also grateful that a large bonus of my job is that I'm literally taking tens of thousands of photos each year, so I have something to show for the fast-passing sands of time. Anywho... another Tacoma Community House fundraiser has come and gone. They took it up a notch this year, making it a masquerade event, and fire and acrobatic performers were there to add a little spice.