Hey there!

For those of you who’re subscribed to my Xanga, either via RSS or through email, I just thought I’d drop in and explain what’s up.  As I noted once or twice in previous blog posts, and as is obvious for anyone who follows me on Twitter or knows me on Facebook, …I’m blogging at matthewsaville.com/blog from now on.

It’s ironic, really, because I actually switched (to wordpress) for business reasons, SEO to be precise.  And the ironic part is, my Xanga is quite good at coming up in Google searches…  In fact I’ve gotten quite a few wedding inquiries from couples who found me through this blog.  And to ice the cake, apparently you can now adapt your Xanga URL to be whatever you want it to be, so I could have turned this into matthewsavilleblog.com or blog.matthewsaville.com easily.  Oh well, I’ve already made the switch and put lots of effort into customizing the new wordpress blog, so I guess that’s the direction my business will go.

However I’ve enabled friends lock here for this blog, and I’m REALLY considering taking advantage of such privacy to post my personal thoughts and opinions.  I send all my clients to matthewsaville.com/blog, so I have to keep it professional.  Wow, I can’t even remember the last time I blogged about something other than images.  That’s really interesting.  Remember when I blogged on “Icrashonmyface”?  I better go apply friends lock to that Xanga, too.  I’ve been blogging since 2003, wow!

Anyway…  I’ll post a couple recent images, but please do head over to the new blog if you’re interested in continuing to subscribe to my photo blog.  Unfortunately I post mostly portraits and wedding photos these days, so that can get kinda boring after a while if you’re not into that kinda stuff, but as business gets more stable and I get more free time, I’ve been able to get out and shoot landscapes here and there. 

(By the way, these are previously un-blogged images, so I’m treating my Xanga friends to a first look!    Heck, I dunno if people are still reading this blog, but if you are, enjoy…

Take care, and THANK YOU for reading!  The internet, and Xanga at the very beginning of it all, has honestly accounted for 90+ percent of the friends and photographers I associate with today, in one way or another…  Really…

=Matt=
www.matthewsaville.com
matthewsaville.com/blog

I had an awesome time this past Saturday, shooting photos with 10 other photographers down in San Diego at the annual Miramar Air Show.  I’ve shot quite a few air shows in the past, so I’ll keep the repetitive “look, an airplane in the sky!” photos to a minimum.  Here are the creative, artistic moments and images that actually seemed new and fresh to me…

Enjoy!

All images were shot on a D300, with either a Sigma 50-150 for the telephoto images or a Nikon 24 AIS (manual focus) for the wide angles.  All images were shot RAW except the first 2 which were JPG, and all were processed in Bridge CS3.  I spent just a few minutes editing the whole set.  More images will be uploaded to my Facebook soon!

=Matt=

(Sunrise.  My car was parked in this line for about 40 minutes, the line grew to be 3+ miles long…)

(The Jet Truck.  Flippin’ sweet!)

(I know most people won’t get this, but, “nom nom nom!”…)

(This was a 30 second exposure, taken from a tripod.  The airplane moved, and cars also drove through.  And the clouds moved.)

(30 second exposure, at 150mm)

(By the way, if you’re wondering-  This was an airplane with fireworks and sparklers attached to the wings.  Crazy!)

(The obligatory fireworks shot…  Yay.)

(…And the “Ahhhh we’re all gonna die!”  Wall-of-Fire shot…)

(It’s a safe distance away, don’t worry.  Still looks like Armageddon, and you can FEEL the heat from 100-200+ yards…)

(I love f/16.  And no that’s not an F-16 Falcon, it’s an AH-64 Apache.  I’m talking about the starburst effect.)
(…Too bad the bright lights weren’t behind, cause It would have been super cool to get a head-on shot…)

This outdoor photographer has been spending WAY too much time *indoors* lately, I’ll admit.  But today on our way out the door to bible study, Joy and I saw a BEAUTIFUL sunset!  Apparently the sunsets have been exceptionally gorgeous over OC these days.

I’m SOOOOO excited for the Airshow tomorrow.  Oop, I guess that would be today.  It’s after Midnight.  Ah, I gotta get up at like, 5 AM!  Alright, bed time.  Enjoy.

=Matt=

Last weekend’s wedding was awesome!  The lights were EVERYWHERE, and oh-so-beautiful.

To me, wedding portraits AND photojournalism are all about the light.  Nothing magnifies a beautiful moment like dramatic light.  I also like warm light, soft light, rim light, and light that transitions from warm to cool.  As a wedding photographer with roots deep in nature / outdoor photography, I just really enjoy good light.  Okay I’d better stop talking about light…

Photographers:  As per the usual, most of these images are minimally edited, from a Nikon D300 and one of these three lenses-  Sigma 50-150 2.8, Nikon 17-55 2.8, Nikon 85 1.8.  Some shots were JPG, some were RAW.  All were shot with Kelvin white balance, and various different metering and exposure settings.  I talk a LOT about light, white balance, metering and exposure at my Workflowshop because I believe in-camera perfection is actually one of the BIGGEST (and most over-looked) factors in having a quick, enjoyable workflow.

Take care!
=Matt=

Photographers, click HERE to get one of the last two $225 spots at the next Workflowshop!  Only five people get this $50 discount, then the next 5 seats are $275.

The next “workflowshop” is going to be on October 26th, and there are still a FEW seats available for $225 before the price goes up.

You should sign up if:

* You regularly feel overwhelmed by the task of “editing” hundreds of photos.  If it feels downright boring, mundane, instead of exciting or at least manageable, then you’re running the risk of burning out.  I really don’t want that to happen to you!

* You shoot hundreds of photos in a session, or thousands of photos in an event, or each week / month…

* You find yourself doing the same color correction over and over again to similar photos in similar light with a slightly different pose…

* You shoot in a professional capacity, and need to make sure your images are ABSOLUTELY safe, both short-term and long-term.  I’ll be talking about downloading, backup, archiving, etc…

* You aren’t that good at exposure, white balance, or in-camera settings. In my opinion exposure and white balance, or LIGHT in general, is/are actually extremely important in a speedy workflow.  Simply put-  Taking sweet pictures in the first place can honestly get me excited about editing them!  Certain events, yeah the light stinks and ya gotta do what you can, but I definitely notice a difference in my happiness quotient when it comes time to edit photos where I paid attention to the light, or simply had good light to work with.  And light, of course, translates into exposure, white balance and in-camera settings from a technical standpoint…

Who should NOT sign up:

* Photographers who feel like they have enough free time, or at least feel that editing hardly takes up their time…

* Photographers who don’t shoot that many photos, or don’t need to edit that many photos.

* Photographers who, when they do edit photos, only really need to edit a dozen or so and don’t do much more than make ‘em look clear / colorful / sharp, for blog viewing etc…  (No seriously!  A “Photo Blogger” workshop is in the near future.  It will be a much more basic workshop, one that doesn’t cover in-camera settings, or the downloading / backup / proofing stages of workflow, JUST the basic edits to make images pop on your blog / facebook, or for small / medium prints…  It would be much more affordable as well, probably in the $50 range…  I’m thinking early December or late January, when “wedding season” is less intense.  Any input from blog readers?)

…Alright, I’m going to wrap up with a few recent images from a wedding at the arboretum, one of my favorite venues!  Next up will be a new wedding venue I’ve never shot at before, Tivoli Terrace in Laguna Beach…

Take care everybody, and see you soon one way or another!  I’m heading down to San Diego now for the SD Shootout, then this coming weekend I’m heading down to SD again for the Miramar Airshow and my autofocus / exposure workshop, and then Tuesday October 13th is the next So Cal Shootout, phew!  That’s a lot of getting together…

=Matt=

(PS:  As always, these images are minimally processed, with no more than a few seconds’ worth of clicking in Bridge, and some are straight out of the camera with the RAW or JPG default edits.  I REALLY believe that in-camera capture AND computer “default” processing settings are a key element in achieving a happy workflow!)

I love shooting at the Fullerton Arboretum!  Just look at how the light got all nice and warm as the ceremony progressed… 

NO reflector! This was a light bounce I just stumbled upon… 

Off-camera flash at the reception.

And of course, the obligatory tripod reception shot.  This is with the default RAW settings, no adjustments.

Danielle & Eric’s wedding was simply gorgeous, and we definitely had an absolute miracle with respect to weather.  It was 100% predicted to rain every single hour of the day, a couple Saturday’s ago.  Somehow, magically, mid-day the rain stopped and gave us an entire afternoon without more than a couple drops of mist.  Bok Tower is a wonderful wedding location that I would just LOVE to photograph at again some day!  It’s venues like this that I’d offer a big fat discount to brides with good enough taste to pick such a location…

The cloudy light was dreamy and soft, and I had the dreamy-soft bokeh of Eric’s superb 35 1.4 L at my disposal. 

But, I’ll let the images do the talking!

Images were shot on a Nikon D300 and a Canon 5D mk1, using the Sigma 50-150 2.8 lens on the D300, and the Canon 17-40 L or 35 1.4 L on the 5D mk1.  The very first shot was taken with a Sigma 150mm 2.8 Macro on the D300, on a tripod, with gelled off-camera flash coming from the right.

=Matt=

Hey everybody!  I’m sorry I haven’t blogged regularly enough recently, but life has been crazy!  Tons of photo shoots, workshops, a small vacation with Joy and her sibblings, a BEAUTIFUL wedding at the Fullerton Arboretum on 9-9-09, (yep, Wednesday!) …and now I’m in Lake Wales, Florida for my good man Eric Farewell’s wedding.  The ceremony is going to be at Bok Tower Gardens, a BEAUTIFUL Lake Wales and national historic landmark, one of the sweetest wedding venuesI’ve ever shot at.  I need a nap before the rehearsal this afternoon, but here are a few photos from our scouting trip around town…  Enjoy!

=Matt=

This evening I made time to go dirt jumping with some friends.  Kevin Hall from Facebook knows a great jumper so we went down right around sunset today and rocked some really cool pics.  Lemme know what you think!

=Matt=

I always love attending the Miramar Air Show in San Diego, CA.  First and foremost, I’m a geeky guy who loves anything that explodes or breaks the sound barrier.  But also, because I’m a camera geek who LOVES photographic challenges that can be overcome by sheer technical know-how, combined with intuitive anticipation and good timing…

 

(The above photos were taken on all sorts of different cameras, mostly a D70 and a D200, with all sorts of different lenses.  I love any excuse to rent a big 300mm 2.8 lens, or an 80-400 VR!)

Anyways, I realized it would be a GREAT opportunity to help other photographers tackle those intimidating yet critical aspects of camera operation that can be so annoying:  Autofocus, and exposure / metering!

I know it sounds crazy to try and teach a workshop on such a “minor” subject as autofocus.  I honestly have never even HEARD of a workshop about autofocus.  So I know I’m going out on a limb here.

But at the same time, “blurry pictures” seems to be a number one issue that people have, online on forums where people ask questions and post images.  There are just SOOO many different autofocus options on cameras these days, and it just gets more and more complicated…  Cross-type AF points?  Single focus, continuous focus, AI servo? AF-ON? …and on, and on, and on!  My D300 has three buttons and three or four switches for to the various AF settings, and TEN customization options…  Good grief!  It’s gotten to the point that you almost can’t expect to just “grow into” that high-end camera you bought.  If you don’t understand the focusing and exposure / metering settings, you could be completely unable to shoot even a half-decent photo in certain conditions.

Well, luckily I obsess over that stuff.  I eat that stuff for breakfast.  (When I run out of Frosted Mini Wheats, of course.)  Whenever I buy a new camera, I spend hours on end just toying around with the different modes, setting up the camera the way I like it, and experimenting around to see what the best setup is for different types of light or action.  …And, I really love helping other people master this technical kinda stuff!

So, if you want to work towards mastering autofocus, metering and exposure, you should make the commitment and come!   And if you like things that explode and/or go VERY fast, you REALLY should come!  Here’s the breakdown:

1.)  Learn all about autofocus, and which techniques you can use for different situations.  Moving subjects, still subjects, low light, …and what the heck is “focus, recompose” and all that stuff?

2.)  If you have a current generation camera, I can put it on my tripod and calibrate your autofocus for you.  Have you ever looked at your images and the camera is focusing on the background, or maybe the foreground?  ALLLLL the time?  Not good.  Sometimes it could be that you’re not focusing properly, but it could also be that your camera is simply not working acurately.  And there is NOTHING more annoying than doing everything right yet still getting bad results…

3.)  Learn about when to use which metering mode, or exposure mode, and how to consistently get the right exposure even when light is changing from one moment to another.

4.)  Spend a LOT of one-on-one time with me to either master autofocus, exposure, or if you want to talk about other more complicated things, I’m game!  It’s going to be a long day, so depending on how many people wanna go, we might spend an entire hour chatting one-on-one!

Here’s some other general info:

*  Did I mention it’s going to be a LONG day?  The airshow opens at 8 AM, and it’s really a good idea to get there as early as possible, to avoid traffic.  And the show goes until 9:30 PM.  I TOLD you it would be a long day!

*  Admission to the airshow is free.  Even if you don’t want some camera schoolin’, if you like jets and things you really should come!  Grandstand admission is $18 if you buy one on-the-spot, or $14.25 if you buy it in advance online, HERE.  *MY* humble asking price is $45.  You can pay that HERE, and while you’re at it you can read the “what to bring” stuff, and whatnot…

Alright, now I’m all excited!  I can’t wait for October!  I didn’t make it to the Airshow last year, so I’m definitely looking forward to this year!

Take care,
=Matt=

Tuesday afternoon was beautiful and breezy at Craig Park in Fullerton, CA.  I joined up with just a couple of other photographers from the Facebook group “SoCal Photog Shootout” and a couple of their friends.  Michelle and her fiance Victor were kind enough to model for us, even though they’ve already had plenty of engagement photos taken I think.  (Michelle is a bridal model, you may remember her from a shoot I did at the Muzeo venue; AND she is a wedding planner!)

Many thanks to Larry Reeves for starting this impromptu GTG, it was awesome!  I’m really enjoying all the friends and good company I get to hang out with, ever since I started using online social sites to connect with others…  I really can’t imagine not being a member of a group like SoCal Photog Shootout on Facebook, or in whatever other online communities are becoming popular these days.  Do you enjoy shooting pictures?  (especially portraits?)  Do you like friends?  It’s really that simple.  JOIN A COMMUNITY!

Anywho.  Same camera info as always.  At this time of day I shoot mostly in Kelvin WB, around 5000-5500 Kelvin, and of course RAW because we were dealing with some CRAZY contrast and I knew that with shots like this first one, I might want to do some heavy, artistic processing…

BTW, any couples who need engagement photos, NOW is the time to get them!  The afternoons are wonderful, and even if you don’t get off work until 5 PM we can still get some beautiful light going on.  If you’re engaged and in the OC area, I’m offering a few FREE engagement sessions to any couples who are willing to model in front of 5-10 photographers!  HERE is my contact page…

Alright, imma shutup and get to the photos!  Only got a couple, since it’s 3 AM and I got other work to do….tomorrow!

=Matt=