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I know you're probably offended that I didn't consult you all first before entering images into this summer's OC fair photography competition.  A part of me does want to have some friends "screen" my own judgment, and help me pick my "best" photos.  I know all too well that my own taste is kinda quirky and definitely not mainstream, so having someone "keep me in check" and stop me from entering a weird abstract or boring photo might increase my chances of winning quite a bit.  I've gotten funny looks for being VERY proud of photos as "boring" as THIS and THIS, even.  I still AM very proud of those photos.

So another part of me just wants to pick the photos that mean the most to ME, because that is really the BOTTOM line when it comes to art.  I don't want to cater to anyone, or submit a photo just because I (or we) think it has the "best chance" of winning.  I would feel like I was selling out...

So, I just looked through my crop of recent photos, and picked the three that pulled at my own heart strings the most.  We'll see what happens!  Wish me luck!  I have NOT had much luck with contests in the past, actually, so I'm not expecting much this time.  Judges pick whichever photos THEY like, and judges always seem to have taste that isn't along my lines.

And no, sadly I was not able to re-create the vertical tidepool panorama.  The tides / moon / weather just did not come together at any particular point recently.  But I will continue to wait patiently for the right conditions!  Anywho, here are my three entries:

(I did also consider the COLOR VERSION instead of this one.  But I like this one more...)

(I did also consider THIS photo instead.  But I just LIKE bees, cliche as they are...  I also like back-lighting!)

(I also considered THIS photo of the moonrise over half-dome, but this one just touches me more.  The B&W is so Ansel-cliche...)

So, there you have it, my weird, quirky taste.  These are my absolute favorite photos from the past few months, the ones I am most proud of.  I hope some like them as much as I do, but everyone is entitled to an opinion.  If any of the photos are exhibited in the fair, I'll be sure to blog again, and if you're local I'd love to hang out at the fair some time!  I got a bunch of free fair tickets for entering!  (You have to pay to enter...)

By the way, if  YOU want to enter, you CAN, they just extended the online submission deadline to June 1st!  Click HERE...

Take care!  Now, I'm off to go pick up Joy from LAX.     
=Matt=

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PS:  Hey, local photographers!  Stay tuned for an announcement
concerning this summer's potential "night time photography" workshop! 
I'm going to have multiple dates, for multiple kinds of shooting
situations, such as full moon, new moon, etc...

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Okay, NON-BAD NEWS:  Joy comes home tomorrow.  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright, now the bad news:  My trusty, beloved Sigma 150mm macro lens is going in for service.  I've owned it (and abused it) for something like 3 years now, and I don't think it's ever been in for service.  So, I'm pretty surprised that it, especially being a third-party lens, has held up this long.  It's one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used, wide open at f/2.8 it looks better than many lenses do at f/5.6 or f/8.  Just a stunning lens.

Lately it has started to over-expose images when shooting at f/2.8, and maybe under-expose ALL images at f/4 and beyond.  It does this on multiple camera bodies.  It has also been looking quite soft at f/2.8.  It still has loads of resolution and renders details very well, but there is a distinct falloff in contrast and clarity between f/4 and f/2.8.  It just looks different than it used to.

Of course it is still as stellar as ever at f/8 and f/11 where I use it to capture texture images, but I really bought the lens to use it at f/2.8, not f/8.  So I'm shipping it off to Sigma, and hoping that any repair estimate (if even possible) isn't too pricey. 

(I darkened the image a little in BR CS3, to keep the red channel from clipping in the upper left...)
(...But in general there is a serious, bizarre difference in brightness when I go from f/4 to f/2.8...)

I dunno, something's just not right.  To the un-trained eye, this image might look fine.  But the bokeh has a strange dreamy-ness to it that wasn't there before...  Not that I don't mind extra softness in my background, I just want  to know that my lens is working perfectly.  And I'm very confident that it is not.  Oh well.  The bottom line is that Texture Tuesday may be put on hold for a few weeks, depending on how soon I get my lens back.  I may be able to come up with something using my other lenses, but ironically I'm actually going to also send in my Nikon 17-55 2.8 for focus check, since I have about a month free right now before my summer weddings begin.  The only lens I'll have for the next few weeks will be my Sigma 50-150 f/2.8.  This should be interesting!

Multiple exposure, made in-camera, not sure if I like it but it was bizarre at least...

TEXTURE OF THE WEEK

If you want to download the texture of the week, CLICK HERE.  It's free!
Then, CLICK HERE to view my complete fine art texture portfolio, or click HERE for details + FAQ.

Take care,
=Matt=

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PS:  Hey, local photographers!  Stay tuned for an announcement
concerning this summer's potential "night time photography" workshop! 
I'm going to have multiple dates, for multiple kinds of shooting
situations, such as full moon, new moon, etc...

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More demonstration photos!  These photos I've posted are just my "bread 'n butter" images, the normal style of shooting that I like.  I'm not going for jaw-dropping artistic merit, I'm just blogging an image here and there to pass the time while I plug away at work.  (And plus lately I've shot a LOT of private events, and those don't get blogged, so that's why I'm still blogging tidbits from a recent wedding...)

F/1.8 would have been nice, (I would have gotten more than twice the background blur) ...but the background separation is still enough to make the flowers and cake look very crisp and sharp.  A lot of times, sharpness is more-so in your mind than a technical measurement.  And background separation is a great way to give an extra crisp, clear look (aka pop) to your subjects...

This is one kind of close up image that you could NOT get with a macro lens.  Instead of composing the ONLY subject in focus and everything else blurred, I took advantage of the lens'  WIDE angle, and placed a secondary subject in the background.  Heck, maybe your eye actually goes to the couple FIRST!  Either way, my point was that macro lenses are at a disadvantage a lot of the time because of their narrow field of view.  This can give you TONS  of background blur, when you want it, but actually limits what you can do in other compositional situations...  So don't forget about your ability to create background blur at ANY focal length!

Speaking of bread 'n butter, I use matrix metering as my default metering mode for 90% of my photos.  (Except when I'm shooting theater, in which case I use 99% SPOT metering...)  So I'll leave that out of my usual camera data, unless otherwise noted.  Cool?  Or, I should as, what exactly ARE people interested in knowing about the photos I blog?  white balance?  Exposure?  Metering?  Focal length?

Anywho, in this case as all you knowledgeable photographers should know, a perfect neutral exposure would have rendered these nice white tones too grey-ish, so that's why I bumped up the exposure 2/3 of a stop...  I was using a flash bounced on the ceiling, but I usually don't bother dialing compensation in on the flash, I just dial it on my camera.  I like to keep track of my compensation, and I hate to say it but if I don't see it in my viewfinder, I'm liable to forget about it...

Alright take care all!  Don't hesitate to pop a quick question if there's something you're stumped about.  No guarantees on an immediate answer, but I'll be around sooner or later!

=Matt=

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PS:  Hey, local photographers!  Stay tuned for an announcement
concerning this summer's potential "night time photography" workshop! 
I'm going to have multiple dates, for multiple kinds of shooting
situations, such as full moon, new moon, etc...

---

I used to drag my big huge 150mm macro lens to every wedding, partly because it doubled as a great telephoto lens...  Lately though, I've been finding that I can get close enouh with just my normal zoom lenses.  I was disappointed in the performance of my Sigma 50-150mm because it couldn't do macro like my dedicated Sigma macro.  But lately, and especially for subjects that don't mind me getting really close, I have found that my Nikon 17-55 is just ridiculously sharp close up, and has oh-so-smooth background blur.  The "macro" nature shots in my previous post are some examples, and here's one from a recent wedding...

I still use my Sigma 150mm macro, though.  It is GREAT for creating textures, I'll tell you that much.  It also makes a great wildlife etc. telephoto lens for hiking...

Every now and then I'll try and add as much camera data to my images as possible.  In this case, you can see my exposure / metering modes along with the normal camera info.  I was probably rolling custom WB, either measured with my expo disc or set in live view using the Kelvin adjustments.  Then I warmed it up a little bit; I love how I can tweak even custom WB, that is something new that my older cameras could never do and it drove me nuts cause "perfect" white balance usually looks too blue to the human eye...

I'd say I was about 10 inches from the subject.  That's how you get this much blur on a tough-to-blur cropped sensor camera.  (But, for stuff that geeky, you should be subscribing to CameraTalk...)  That's the best advice I can offer to people who are interested in giving more impact to their photos.  Zoom in, get closer, and open up your apeture!  Even "kit" lenses are capable of blur like this, in fact Pentax has a "kit" lens that does even BETTER with it's macro mode!  I highly recommend Pentax (and Olympus) DSLR's to anyone considering photography as a hobby...

Take care,
=Matt=

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PS:  Hey, local photographers!  Stay tuned for an announcement concerning this summer's potential "night time photography" workshop!  I'm going to have multiple dates, for multiple kinds of shooting situations, such as full moon, new moon, etc...

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(Image created by using the multiple exposure function on my D300.  I took one shot in focus, and one shot out of focus...)

(Image created by shooting JPG on my D300, with the in-camera B&W set  to use a red color filter.)

Obviously, the red filter here does NOT tone the image red.  In fact the above image, since it was shot JPG, is almost straight out of the camera.  I actually had to tone DOWN the thick, rich contrast a touch.  What in-camera B&W filtering DOES do is the same thing as using a color filter over your B&W film.  It affects HOW colors get converted to B&W.  In the case of the red filter, it lets reds (flowers here) be more prominent, while opposite colors (green leaves) go very dark.  Exactly like in-camera channel mixing, for you geeks out there!  And you should see how amazing it can do portraits, when using any of the warmer filters!  I think this is a newer feature on the 2007 / 2008 DSLR's, check to see if YOURS has it.  So far I only know that the new Nikons have it, but I'd guess that others may...

Always exploring and experimenting,
=Matt=

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Approximately seven days and five hours until Joy comes home!!!! 

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Usually, when you're thinking of a "look" to give your fine art images, in this case through texture overlays, you have one of these two goals in mind:  Either to make the image LOOK like digital art- modern, artsy, intentional;  OR, to make the image look, well, just old, messed up, or whatever.  But it would look like you DIDN'T do it, it just happened.  Natural.  Allow me to demonstrate, using some previous texture images, since I'm still catching up on work...

(Obviously this image was digitally created.  But that's the point...)

(This image just looks like it's an old beat-up, faded film slide from the sixties.  ...But that's the point!)
(...Momma don't take my kodachrome away!)

As usual, now my point is going to be that being able to identify different techniques will help you better achieve them.  So, what do YOU tend to prefer?  "Natural" fine art imagery, or modern, catchy looks?  I think I'm a little bit of both, but probably more "oldschool" natural...  As a geeky photoshop addict, I enjoy doing all sorts of photoshop.  But as an artist, and as a film photographer by hobby, I do have a great appreciation for natural beauty.  Maybe that's why I like girls with less makeup, etc.  (Well, I like ONE girl with less makeup, I should say!)  Wow okayyyy, if that's not a tangent, I don't know WHAT is!!

Joy comes home in SEVEN days, by the way!!!

The TEXTURE OF THE WEEK is back!

(Pretty cool, eh?  I captured it LAST Tuesday, hoping to upload it then haha.  I should put TWO textures in the freebie gallery this week...)

If you want to download the texture of the week, CLICK HERE.  It's free!
Then, CLICK HERE to view my complete fine art texture portfolio, or click HERE for details + FAQ.

Take care all,
=Matt=

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I am sitting at the beach right now.  I just spent an hour or two catching a bit of a tan, doing some bookwork, and organizing some images.  I love Southern California, and I LOVE being self-employed!

I'll blog TEXTURE TUESDAY as soon as I get home.  I'm so sorry for abandoning my blog the past couple weeks!  Time decided to speed up to full-throttle, and I could barely hang on.  But now things are normal again, and I'm relaxing a little...

(Taken with a macbook webcam, exposure data unknown... )

Take care, and make time to relax,
=Matt=

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Sorry for not being around.  It's just been one of those weeks.  (Or two...)  Everything all at once.  But life is like that sometimes, and I don't mind.  As long as I'm free here and there to sneak out and have a little personal time... 

CLICK for high res image... (Three image composite)

"...Feeling Hollow..."
(RAW image dual-processed for sky and earth, merged in PS CS3.)

I definitely am feeling lonely right now; it's week eight of Joy's ten-week study abroad program.  So I've been two months without a real embrace, let alone a kiss.  Sure, I went some ~20 years without any of that for the first part of my life, but having been with Joy now for 4+ years, it's just different.  (And yes, I'm ~24; you do the math...  Speaking of math, I proposed to Joy a year and two days ago.  May 6th.  I'll never forget.)  But anyway, I'm blue.  And the Donna Lewis probably isn't helping much.  LOL.

I've come to realize just how much my own happiness depends on her presence, and her love.  Because going so long without holding each other, I just begin to sink...

I have to laugh whenever someone hints to me that I come across as cocky, conceited, or bragging.  Because I'm actually very, very self-deprecating.  I think being highly critical of your past and current self is key to improving and getting truly good at something, so maybe this disposition has helped me improve my photography to some extent.  But a lot of the time, the darker side is still the more prevalent- there is still so much more to photograph, I could always do so much better, and there will never be a day when I can sit back and say "I have arrived, I'm as good as I can / need to be..."  At least I can identify and expose my emotions in an objective manner, objective meaning I can sort of step "outside" myself, detach, and understand everything that I'm feeling.  Normally this would be cause for alarm, but I'm in complete control, or at least I don't ever feel that my emotions control me, I never feel helpless or anything.  Just presently inferior.

But that's what tomorrow is for.  Doing better.  I always do better tomorrow.  And I'm not too bad of a person (or photographer) to begin with, anyway... 

=Matt=

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I really shouldn't be blogging right now.  I have so much work to do.  But it is the weekend, so I'm going to take 10 minutes of "free time" and do something "for myself"...

(That's the guy who TOOK that photo.  Rock 'n Roll legend, (photographer)  Richard E. Aaron.  Wow...)

Take care,
=Matt=

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"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left of you." ~ Simon and Garfunkel

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Created from THIS image, using the texture of the week plus THIS texture and my texture add-on actions...

Created from THIS image, using the texture of the week plus THIS texture and my texture add-on actions...

VIGNETTING:

I'm in favor of adding YOUR OWN vignetting to your textures and your images.  Because you simply want the most options at your disposal when it comes to photoshop.  What if you have a very flat image that you'd rather NOT add vignetting to?  Vignetting is 10x harder to remove after the fact than it is to add as needed.

I'd recommend using Bridge or Lightroom to create one or two different versions of a texture, if you want to add vignetting to the texture itself.  You don't HAVE to add vignetting to the texture of course, many times it's best to add it directly (and  selectively) to the image you're actually working on.  But nevertheless here are some examples of an original texture and a couple different variations with vignetting...  Keep in mind that although it may not look like it, the CENTER of the texture is the same brightness in all three textures...  (This texture is destined to be one of my all-time favorites, I can already tell!)

There are two main types of vignetting.  The subtle, gentle transition vignetting that subliminally draws your attention towards the central area of the photograph, and the not-so-subtle, "ugly" vignetting...  Each has it's uses, and when used properly (subtle & subliminal when appropriate, in-your-face when necessary) ...and each can of course be used improperly, so be careful.  And of course, the best way to learn what works and what doesn't is to EXPERIMENT!

There is one OTHER kind of vignetting, which you can see in the very first image in this blog entry-  the paint-in, erratic, "singed edges" look.  I have an action that helps me create this look pretty quickly, but this one is possibly the easiest to OVERDO, so be careful.  I know from  first hand, on-going experience, heheh, that's why I'm warning you...

Texture of the week!

This one works good as both a positive AND a negative; depending on which blending mode you use...
I created it for when I need to add texture to black areas that usually blend poorly with other textures.

If you want to download the texture of the week, CLICK HERE.  It's free!
Then, CLICK HERE to view my complete fine art texture portfolio, or click HERE for details + FAQ.

Take care all,
=Matt=

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