But the wedding and the photos turned out beautifully.  I love photographing weddings around this area, especially around this time of year!  The hillsides are gorgeous and green, and the weather, even though scary, affords so many opportunities for amazing pictures.  And of course Tivoli is such a cute, intimate little wedding venue.  The combination of beautiful light and happy, energized people always equals MANY great moments to capture.  I’ll shut up and get to the images now… These are quick edit proofs straight outta bridge with no “photoshop”…

Many thanks to Alice Hu and Evonne Wong for assisting me yesterday…  I’m excited to go through your photos next!

Take care,
=Matt=

NOTES:

* These images were captured on a Nikon FM2, on either Agfa Ultra 100 negative film, or Velvia 50 slide film.  I use a Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AIS and 50mm f/1.8 AIS, as well as (sometimes) a Nikon 85mm f/1.8, or f/1.4, AND recently I was given a WONDERFUL manual macro lens, a hard-to-find Tamron 90mm f/2.5…

* All of this gear can be had for less than $500, not counting the Nikon 85’s which are not manual focus lenses…  I get all my film / processing from Pro Photo Connection, in Irvine.  Film + Processing + low-res disc totals approx. $20 per roll of 36 images, when you’re using professional grade film and a professional lab.  So you gotta make each shot count!

* Agfa went out of business many years ago, in 2006 or something, and I hoarded a case of it in my parents fridge.  I’m down to my last two rolls now, so I really want to make them count.  Anybody in the mood to shoot some film, whether they be portraits or nature photos, let me know!  I’d love company…  (and you’re welcome to try out any of my lenses, if you shoot Nikon!)

* All the images were processed slightly in Bridge CS3 for contrast or curves, and that’s it.  ZERO color adjustments.  That’s what I like about film-  the colors aren’t digital-perfect, and yet that’s what gives each film, each shot, it’s character.  There’s just something about it that makes me keep shooting.  (I also have a passion for old cameras with their metal construction, their dials and switches, and the buttery smooth manual focus rings.  Any photographer who has ONLY ever felt what manual focus is like on an AF lens, you’re missing out in life.  No AF lens will ever match the feel of a MF focus ring… 

Take care,
=Matt=

Nikon Coolpix S210, 6.3mm, (38mm) ISO 1163, f/3.1, 1/150 sec. (I set the camera to “HI ISO” mode, whatever that is, and forced the flash OFF, then dialed the exposure compensation down to -2 to try and balance out the terrible empty black background that would have surely thrown off the light meter…)

And, on this note, I have a very fun project that I’ll be starting soon. It will involve this photo, and it will be very geeky, in a way that only ONE person can guess!

Take care,
=Matt=

Take care!
=Matt=

Nikon D300, 24mm AIS, (both back from service, yay!) on a tripod and using a circular polarizer and GND filter. 2.5 second exposure, f/11, ISO 200. Even with the GND, I still had to double-process the RAW file and merge the images in Photoshop. I need to get out and shoot nature more often!

=Matt=

One thing I learned, (maybe from Becker?!) is that your energy is in limited supply each day. Consider each emotion or action throughout the day as if you’re spending a dollar. And you only have so many dollars. Life is short, energy is precious, so why spend your energy on negativity? It serves no purpose. Well maybe it serves a purpose for people who *need* to release their anger regularly, to vent frustration or something. They say it’s not good to bottle up anger. But bottom line, hate mail is just a bad habit that needs to be kicked. If you’ve got anger to vent, take up boxing.

Anywho I got my own “hate mail” the other day. On my blog actually, next post down, go ahead and read it! Someone named Michael called my recent images “fake”, because they were staged photos of models. Thanks for the opinion! You’re right, I’ve been posting a lot of Photog Shootout events lately, and not many real weddings. Oops! Sue me. It’s winter time, how many weddings are YOU shooting in December / January?

It wouldn’t feel right if I just deleted the comment and censored people’s opinion of my photography, so instead I’m going to take a minute to at least mention WHY I shoot photos together with other photographers in a “staged” environment. Oh, and I’ll be posting portraits from all of my REAL 2009 weddings. So eat your heart out, Mike!

Alright… (Oh by the way- Click on my website. The photos in my main portfolio are ALWAYS real-world clients. I don’t believe in using modeled portraits to sway potential clients who are about to hire me; I only ever use on-the-job wedding photos. Modeled portraits are strictly a blog, Facebook, and “for photographers” thing… (Apart from ONE of my favorite images of Rachel Amara, a friend who models for me regularly just because we enjoy shooting together. To view her PRIVATE portfolio, click here…)

1.) I enjoy shooting with friends. And I can’t exactly have 10 friends tag along at all my weddings, can I?

2.) Practice makes perfect. Especially during the winter when there are as few as 0-2 weddings a month, you gotta stay sharp. I’d NEVER let myself go from November to March without shooting some portraits!

3.) As a leader of the Photog Shootout community on Facebook, I attend a LOT of photo shoots. Plain and simple, I have been blessed with the opportunity to do LOTS of photo shoots, with LOTS of friends.

Looking back over my 2009 year, I’m really happy with the images. More importantly, my clients are happy! I hope that a similar thread of quality and style can be seen in all my images, which to an extent I’ll consider a good thing. When a bride and groom hire me, they know what they’re getting- awesome photos! Of course there’s always room for improvement, and one should always stretch upward to that next level. 2010 will be better than 2009. Just like 2009 was better than 2008, and 2008 was better than 2007… But here’s 2009. Thank you, to all the couples who hired me and let me be a part of their amazing weddings! Each one was truly memorable, and I say that sincerely. To me each wedding day is such an adventure, I feel totally pumped each time I show up, pull out my cameras, and go to work.

I have many goals for 2010- venues I want to shoot at again, new locations and ideas I’d like to try out… And of course behind the images I’ve got a few changes planned for my workflow and business. Branding is getting tightened up, slowly but surely, and I’m also going to have a helper or two with client correspondence, paperwork, and album design.

…Okay I’m done typing, this is getting un-exciting. Photos, then I have other work to do. Without any further ado, here’s 2009 in review! (Remember, these are real brides and grooms, and in numerous instances we had no more than 5-15 minutes to knock out the wedding portraits! I hope you think I rocked ‘em…)

Take care,
=Matt=

Okay so, image time.  To everyone who contributed to this event, the flowers, the dresses, the makeup, the models, I’ll be hooking you up with some portfolio images asap! 

(Images were all shot on my D200, with my Sigma 50-150, since, to be honest, that’s the only piece of equipment I have right now, the rest of it is all in for service.  Winter cleaning, ya know!)

=Matt=

While camping in Joshua tree over New Years, I made this marginally successful night time lapse with a D200 and a manual focus 50mm f/1.8… (393 shots were captured at f/2.8, ISO 800, and a 10 second shutter speed, shots were captured back-to-back, and the video was created with 10 FPS playback.   So essentially, this is a little over an hour’s worth of time compressed into 39 seconds.  Enjoy!

I hope to improve on this idea dramatically someday soon.  I’d like 2010 to be a year of more dramatic outdoor photography!

=Matt=

I’m heading to Joshau Tree right now for a couple days, with Joy and a couple friends. I hope to shoot some more images / footage like this one… We’ll see how it turns out!

Take care all,
=Matt=

Hey, photographers!  Since we’re getting into the “down” season now, I’m making time for a few things that I’ve been trying to do for years now.  It has taken forever but I’ve finally put in enough brainstorming…  I’ve always had a soft spot for helping out other photographers in the technical respects, especially the geeky things like camera controls-  autofocus, exposure, metering, flash, etc. etc.  So I’ve always tried to maintain a collection of opinions, tutorials, and reviews.  Any who’ve followed my blog from years ago will know that I’ve often had pages on my SmugMug (now renamed photos.matthewsaville.com, thanks to the awesomeness that is SmugMug Pro branding….  Use my referral code for $5 off your 1st year, if you haven’t already found a good photo host!)

Anyway, a lot of the content I posted back then is totally out of date now, and so I’ve cleansed most of that old content from the public view, and totally re-organized things into much better sections…  Today I’m going to mention the link that has actually been accessible for a while now, photos.matthewsaville.com/for-photographers.

The bottom line is that I’m definitely not good at certain things, like giving business, marketing, or financial advice. My direction, my area of expertise, is the geeky camera stuff. And I’m cool with that. So I’ve put together a few mini workshops on cameras, light, and workflow. For a more complete description of all the workshops, go here:

http://photos.matthewsaville.com/For-Photographers/Workshops-List

Coming up:

Sunday January 10th – Camera Workshop: Low-light focusing and exposure, and anything else related to camera operation / customization. Location is the Long Beach Aquarium! ($67, includes lunch)

Sunday January 31st – Natural Light Portrait Workshop: How to create stunningly beautiful images without a buch of geeky lighting equipment… ($95)

(There is a *lighting* workshop listed, but I haven’t set one up yet because I’d rather teach people natural light first…)

Saturday, February 6th – Photo Blogger Workshop: The basics on getting images to look beautifully clear and crisp, JPG or RAW, with an emphasis on making images look stunning and sharp on your blog, facebook, and in small / medium prints… ($45)

Sunday, February 7th – The Workflowshop: The complete, start-to-finish hardcore workflow workshop for photographers who shoot “too many” photos and are feeling burnt out… How to shoot gorgeous images straight out of the camera, how to organize / backup / archive them all, and how to spend just a few seconds per image on editing instead of wasting your time burning your eyeballs out in Photoshop at 3 AM. ($225 for the 1st 5 students, $275 for the remaining 5.)

Alright, take care all!  I’m really excited for 2010, hopefully it treats us ALL very well… 
=Matt=

www.matthewsaville.com