For years I had a small, humble 12 x 25 foot studio. It was large enough to get most photo jobs done, but it wasn't exactly "fun" working in minimal space.
Ok, Lewis County photographers, Matty Workshops is coming to you this October. I am holding an advanced workshop October 20th. It's an all-day workshop focused solely on off-camera lighting. It's going to be a fun full day of making eye-catching images. You can get more...
Here we are, the second stop on the Western Washington University project tour I've been working on with fellow creative, Andy Lahmann.
Nothing beats location photo shoots. Don't get me wrong, the studio can be a wonderfully controlled lighting environment to conduct shoots, but the studio's got nothing on the almost infinite photo composition possibilities out in the wild.
It was the third annual event for Ryan's fundraising weekend and my third go as the photographer. It truly is a great weekend, three days of generating awareness and funds for the Burned Children Recovery Foundation. Every Summer, the BCRF's founder holds a week-long camp for the burned children community in the Bellingham area. I've had a chance to personally visit the summer camp to see the amazing, brave survivors Ryan's fundraiser benefits.
After a few months of shooting under it's belt now, I feel comfortable speaking a bit about the 5D3. A lot of the reviews found on the web are usually focused on the numbers and specs, which quite honestly don't mean a whole lot to photographers, especially when it comes to finding information that we consider valuable or translatable-to when we are out seeking an understanding to make new gear purchases.
When I hear the word "fairground," I think of roaring roller coasters with it's screaming riders, acres of game booths, the twinkle of the lights bordering every edge of every building surface, cotton candy, and of course... the craziness of a million people around you. So you could imagine the eeriness of driving onto the local fairgrounds in the off-season to see the exact opposite. For a second your mind wonders to those post-apocalyptic movies, where the land is barren, a location you know yet is unrecognizable, the occasional piece of stray trash rolling along the ground with a gust of wind.
I couldn't but help want to share a few photos from my shoot with baby Carmen. She as a great little model and gave me a great 30 minutes of smiles. Enjoy the photos, more to come.
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. 
