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...And I am filing for blogging bankruptcy.  There are images and events from as long ago as June of 2008, and every subsequent month since then, that I have not even looked at yet.  Something has to change around here.  I seem to have to do this once every year.  I could make a "resolution" to blog at least one picture on any day that I go out shooting, but I know that won't happen.  So I'm just going to do whatever I want.  No guarantees.  This is my blog, after all.  I can do what I please.

Here are a couple photos from a beautiful moment in nature a few days ago, from the absolute middle of NOWHERE...

Nikon D300, Sigma 50-150 2.8, Tripod.

Nikon D300, Nikon 17-55, Sigma Circular Polarizer, Tripod.

Take care!
=Matt=

Contact is all it takes,
To change your life, to lose your place in time
Contact! Asleep or awake
Coming around you may wake up to find
Questions deep within your eyes,
Now more than ever, you realize...

And then you sense a change
Nothing feels the same
All your dreams are strange
love comes walkin' in
Some kind of alien
Waits for the opening
Simply pulls a string...

Another world, some other time
You lay your sanity on the line
Familiar faces, familiar sights
Reach back, remember with all your might
Ohh there she stands in a silken gown
Silver lights shining down

And then you sense a change
Nothing feels the same
All your dreams are strange
love comes walkin' in
Some kind of alien
Waits for the opening
Simply pulls a string
Love comes walkin' in...

Oh, sleep and dream, that's all I crave
I travel far across the Milky Way
To my master I become a slave
Til we meet again some other day
Where silence speaks as loud as war
Earth returns to what it was before

And then you sense a change
Nothing feels the same
All your dreams are strange
love comes walkin' in
Some kind of alien
Waits for the opening
Simply pulls a string
And love comes walkin' in...

Love comes walkin' in
Baby pull the string
Love comes walkin' in...

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...I am, of course!  Just to spite all the people who try and joke with me saying "you can't shoot your own wedding, so who you gonna hire?"

But seriously, folks, it's totally dooable.  Check it out!  All you need is a fisheye lens and long arms...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, obviously I jest. I'm hiring a professional to document my big day.  I'll reveal WHO in just a few days I think.  Someone many may know / remember...

But for now, here is the rest of the photos we took by ourselves.  We're trying to get the perfect invitation photo, basically.  (Yeah, we haven't sent out our invitations yet, I know...)  So CLICK HERE, check out the photos, and let me know which ONE you like!

Now I get to feel and realize just HOW HARD it is to look good in front of a camera!  I'm so critical of myself, I never like my smile, Joy never likes the same photos of herself that I like, and so on and so forth.  We're just bordeline impossible to photograph in the relaxed, quiet, natural / romantic style that *I* shoot my clients with.  How ironic...

SOON, I will also blog more photos of Joy and I in general, as it seems there have been a shortage of pictures of US this entire past year.  I haven't even yet looked at pictures I took at Sea World last July for Joy's birthday!

I may just have to be like Jessica Claire, and declare "blog bankruptcy"...

Take care,
=Matt=

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Alright, see you on the other side!  Here is the most memorable sight I've seen all year...  This is a time-lapse photo made over the course of 60+ minutes, with photos taken about every 5-6 seconds...

DO YOURSELF A HUGE FAVOR, and don't view this tiny.  Click and view it FULL SIZE!!!  (The "full size" view link embedded in the video below just gives you a larger version of the tiny video...)

Take care,
=Matt=

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Alright well, 2008 is a wrap.  Today I shot my last wedding of 2008.  (Obviously, since there AREN'T any more weekends in 2008, and I really avoid back-to-back Saturday/Sunday weddings...)

2008 has been by far the best year of my wedding photography.   I really owe this of course to all the awesome brides and grooms who are good looking, have good taste, and are happy about life, period.  I pray that your marriages will be just as beautiful as your weddings were.

I'm REALLY looking forward to *MY* wedding in 2009, of course.  Almost three months away, WOW!!!

Alright I'm exhausted and my calves are burning.  Today's images are all backed up in triplicate, so this is goodnight!

=Matt=

I shot today's images with my usual gear, at my usual settings...  You know the drill.  This first image is almost straight-out-of-camera actually, with un-touched auto white balance even.  I dunno I just love the shot because the bride's fingers are still ring-less and so you know when it was taken...  Oh and those are two of my favorite flowers, haha...

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Drumroll, please!  This raffle is for the DVD "A Hands-On Guide to Creative Lighting", with Bob Krist and Joe McNally.  (In case you didn't know, they're two of the world's best adventure / environmental portrait photographers.  I must say, I am really looking forward to stealing a glance at this video when it arrives on my doorstep.  If you ask very nicely and if you live around town, I might let you hang out with me and watch it before I ship it off to MY GOOD FRIEND KIM NODURFT!  Congratulations, Kim!  You have my email, I need your address!

(If you're wondering what took this raffle so long- I had to finish all the cookies in that tub!  It wasn't easy!) 

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Next, I really wanted to share a link and a concept with all those photographers out there who aspire to become masters.  Maybe you aspire to succeed in the business of photography, maybe you simply desire to take pictures that you can really be proud of.  This advice was given by Chase Jarvis (another legend in the adventure / outdoor photography industry) ...to those who ask him "Chase, how do I truly *make it* (professionally) in photography?"

"Be undeniably good."

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/12/secret-to-success-in-photography.html

I highly recommend the reading, including the insightful comments.  (Except for my comment, since I'm about to elaborate on that now...)  There's a "part two" in the answer, of course, that I especially agree with.

I am gradually having a faint epiphany (if that is possible) as I pursue photography over the years.  Most of the time I was desperately searching for something secret, something "I didn't know that I didn't know..."  I'm realizing that success is not a secret.  Sure, there were MANY things we never knew that have dramatically improved our vision, our style, or our business.  But it was the pursuit that got us there, not the secret itself.  The secret didn't come to us; we went out there and hunted it down...

It is really difficult for an experienced photographer to answer the simple question "how did you get so good?"  I mean obviously, the answer is obvious.  Yet people expect to master their camera in just one month, or after capturing only 1,000 images...  Let alone, go into business!  Whenever someone asks me a general question like that, my current answer is "take 100,000 photos, then we'll talk..."

So the down side is, there are no short-cuts, no get-rich-quick scheme.  You will work HARD, you will "pay your dues".  And I highly advise one technique that has served me well-  being brutally honest and critical of your own work; keep a best-of portfolio yet be *very* quick to dump images out of it... So yeah, I guess that could seem disappointing, but  honestly- this actually gives me so much hope for success.  It means that being "undeniably good" is not genetic, it doesn't cost much money, and it DEFINITELY doesn't involve highly classified information.  Sweet!!!

I'm always eager and delighted to answer specific, technical or visionary questions of course.  Those questions are part of the pursuit.  But you have to sit down and figure out what it is you want to know, you have to take action!

Alright, take care all, and congratulations Kim!  Now I'm off to finish this wedding and then tomorrow I'm gonna head into Calumet and see if I can pick up an umbrella + clamp, to further expand my horizons of off-camera flash...

=Matt=

Nikon D300  -  Nikon 17-55 2.8  -  26mm - f/2.8  -  1/1500 sec.

Nikon D300  -  Nikon 17-55 2.8  -  22mm  -  f/2.8  -  1/500 sec.
Wireless SB800 flash on the left, zoomed to 24mm...

Nikon D300  -  Nikon 17-55 2.8  -  34mm  -  f/2.8  -  1/1500 sec.
Wireless SB800 flash from the right, zoomed to 105mm...

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Hello, my friends.  I am sorry for being slammed with work.  (As ALWAYS...)

I know this may come as a shock to most Christians out there, but I wanted to mention that I don't really celebrate Christmas.  Not because I don't want to hear people tell me "merry Christmas!" or receive those mass-messages that people send out to everyone on their subscription list.  I surely don't mind; if you're celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ then I'm all in favor.

The reason I don't celebrate the day itself, (and all my peeps out there can help out, even though I know you're probably in the WT right now haha) ...is because, well, the holiday originally had nothing to do with the birth of Christ.  I'm sure everybody knows this and has heard it a hundred times, but both Christmas and Easter used to be nothing more than pagan parties that the church (catholic church?  Christ+mass?) decided to assimilate into their religion so that christianity would be easier for the roudy dark-age masses to get into.  Something like that.

But before this starts to sound like me trying to poo-poo on everybody else's holiday, I'll stop.  (I definitely want all my christian friends to be as happy as they'll ever be, if this is the day they chose to celebrate Christ being born...)   Suffice it to say that I won't be "teaching" my kids about Santa Clause, but I will try my best to instill in them a strong sense of giving and charity.  I won't necessarily be decorating a tree and putting presents under it and opening them all on December 25th, but I do LOVE the smell of a good fir / evergreen, and sure love an excuse to have these around.  And of course, I love the Lord with all my heart and praise God that He sent His Son down to be born in a manger, to live a life as a human subjected to this world, and to die on the cross as the lamb for our sins, and that we may now simply believe into that fact and be saved.

(And, I'll save any non-believers the trouble-  Either you believe that God can exist and that one can rise from the dead, or you don't.  That's it.  None of this "if God exists, why is there pain and suffering in the world?"  First you believe, then we talk...)

Maybe I should have blogged this in late June when it's "safe" to do so, but it's too late now I guess...  You are free to try and convince me how positive and uplifting the Christmas holiday can be for *YOU* personally as a christian, but I already know, I surely believe you, and I may not have the time to respond.  But if you feel like putting in a good word, ...well I doubt you're all checking your Xangas at 10:40 AM on Christmas day...

Take care, and praise the Lord!
=Matt=

PS- these photos were taken LAST Thursday, when the snow level dropped down to about 1,000 feet and our local hills (which burned just last year) were coated in beautiful white...

Nikon D300, Sigma 50-150, Sigma EX circular polarizer

Nikon D300, Sigma 50-150, Sigma EX circular polarizer

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Hey professional wedding photographers, are you ready for the next big thing in the wedding photography business?  VIDEO photography?  "FUSION IS NOW..."  (A forthcoming video by the awesome Canadian wedding photographers, the Bebbs...)

...I'm totally excited to take on this brand new business concept...  And scared out of my mind too!

=Matt=

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Okay so I'm sitting here figuring out how to do a legit, fair raffle for the Creative Lighting Guide, and there is a police chopper circling the area around my house.  For like, the past 15 minutes.  That cannot be a good thing, especially here in Irvine.   Hopefully nobody has been hurt or killed...

(Nikon D300, Nikon 17-55 2.8, tripod, off-camera flash hand-held and signaled via pop-up flash.
I used the shutter speed to control the ambient light, and the flash was on manual power...
But whoever wins this Creative Lighting DVD will sure be able to blow away these photos, right?

Ghetto bird still circling.  I'm afraid to go out and run my errands now!  Better call Joy to see where she's at...

Take care all,
=Matt=

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Okay so MORE people are interested in voicing their opinion on two pictures *I* took, than winning a DVD on how to MAKE better pictures?  (40 versus 23...)

Either human nature  is quick to offer a critique of other people's work and reluctant to put effort into bettering their own work, ...or it was Thanksgiving holiday & vacation, and everyone was out of town!

So to combat either possibility, I've included this "poll" in an EXTENSION of my FREE "Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting DVD" give-away...  I'll do the raffle THIS FRIDAY, December 5th...

So, please do comment on which of  this sequence of photos you like, what makes it a good photo, (or what makes others less nice?) ...and if you want to win the Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting DVD, put "ENTER ME!" in your comment!  (In my last entry, there was  bit of confusion with people who made it sound like they wanted to comment without being entered in the drawing, but didn't actually state YES or NO...)

Take care all,
=Matt=

(All images)
Nikon D300  -  Sigma 50-150 2.8  -  70-120mm-ish  -  f/4-ish,
...And for some reason I shot at ISO 1250 for a few of the shots, and ended up LOVING the grain in Sepia...
RAW images processed in Bridge CS3 using my "faded B&W" preset (RAD imitation?) and some fine-tuning.
I also tinkered around with a new high-tech action for adding really film-looking grain to the ISO 200 shots...
...Plus my Photoshop actions for misc. workflow  (Save a copy to my portfolio, my iPod, and this blog version..)

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...I'm thankful for it.

Nikon D300  -  Nikon 17-55 2.8  -  17mm  -  f/16  -  1.5 sec.  -  ISO 100
Kelvin WB @ 5500K  -  Manual exposure  -  Center-weighted metering
Circular Polarizer  -  Tripod  -  Cable release

Happy holidays, everybody.  Go on a vacation, go on an adventure, and enjoy this place we call home...  So far, it's the only one in the universe...

=Matt=

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