 |
|
|
Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web. As you've likely figured out by now from the big, blatant logo above, my name is Matt and my passion lies behind my camera. I'm a portrait photographer in the Dallas/Fort Worth area focusing (pun possibly intended) on capturing people in a natural, artistic and authentic style.
This is a place where (soon-to-be) clients, family, friends, photographers, and harmless stalkers can see my most recent featured work, what I've been up to, and who I am. And with a little luck, I may accidentally occasionally write or post something that's mildly entertaining or even - dare I say - useful. Hopefully you'll see just as much about me as you will my work because as a photographer the more people know about me, the more relaxed they are in choosing me to capture the moments they'll remember and cherish for a lifetime.
Thanks again for dropping in. God bless!
|
|
Sight-Sea'ing in Atlanta
March 4, 2010 ~ Personal, Travel
| I'm in Atlanta this week and had a little free time yesterday afternoon and was able to break away and check out the fishies at the Georgia Acquarium downtown. $27 seemd a bit steep for a lok at a few of our fish friends, but it was a nice little getaway.
|
Here's my buddy Robin with a little dramatic overhead fish tank lighting. ISO 5000.
|
New Product - Pimp Your Phone
March 2, 2010 ~ For Clients
Here's a fun new product I'm excited to offer to clients as of today. Customize your phone with a favorite session image and add another to your phone's display background. Then be prepared for an onslaught of phone envy. Don't have an iPhone? No worries, we can pimp out almost any of the newer model phones, so make sure to ask about your phone at your next session!
|
The Drumms ~ Family Time
February 26, 2010 ~ Families, Kids
Two weeks ago the Drumms came up to stay with us for the weekend. As I mentioned in my ealier blog post, unfortunately our time was cut short when Claire, the girls, and myself started feeling a little less than Stellar. Well, two weeks later I'm still trying to shrug off whatever it is that I got that weekend, but I'm almost there. I've been laying a little low since then, but I did take some time to finish up the images from the 40-some degree session we did down in Highland Park.
Here's a few of my frigid favorites.
|
You'd never know they were freezing in the image below.
|
Jason grabbed my other camera and took this photo....
|
.... of me taking this photo of Sophia.
|
I think what I like the most about this next image is because these two are the real deal when it comes to affection towards one another.
|
Sweet Alaythea. So precious.
|
And finally, our session came to an end after little Alaythea's encounter with a patch of mud.
|
And finally, our session came to an end after little Alaythea's encounter with a patch of mud.
|
Quarantined
February 23, 2010 ~ Personal
Had the sniffles last week, handed it off to Kylie, and then was
feelin' pretty swell ( yes, swell, Beaver) by the weekend. Went out to
dinner with friends Jerry and Tina on Saturday night, and by the time
we got home that evening I knew something wasn't right. Sunday was
abismal, but serendipitously I had scheduled my annual physical exam
for Monday with my regular doctor. Sweet, now I could turn my head
& cough and get some good meds all in one trip. Of course, the way
insurance works, even though you're only there once, they have to charge you for two office visits. Oh well, it was worth it.
Long
stoy short, my cholesterol's great. My flu resistance? Not so much.
The good news is I got what I think is my first official Dr's excuse to
play hookie since 6th grade. The bad news is, I'm quarintined to the
house. Actually, I can go out in public, but according to the handy
"Home Care Instructions for Patients with the Flu Virus" sheet I was
given, "a sick person (i.e. me) should wear an [awesome-looking]
surgical mask when near uninfected persons to prevent the spread of the
flu virus. When he/she is unable to wear a surgical mask" - and this
is my favorite part coming up - "everyone else should wear a surgical
mask when around that person."
Don't get me wrong, there's
both pros and cons to wearing the mask. The biggest pro is that you
tend to get expedited service when you wear it out in public. I mean,
c'mon... who wants to be stuck by a guy wearing a mask and sniffling
every couple seconds, right? Seriously, stuck in a line at the walk-up
ATM? Put on the mask and cough a time or two. Line gets a whole lot
shorter pretty quick. 8 people ahead of you at the grocery deli? Not
for long. People seem to get particularly freaked out when germs get
close to their food. Welcome to the front of the line. I'm filing
away this little experience for the holidays this year. I expect any
last minute shopping will get a whole go exponentially faster when I
dawn the mask and where a CDC jacket.
So what's a con to wearing
the mask, you might ask? Well, I'm pretty sure the poor girl at the
CVS pharmacy drive-through window nearly offered me all the money in
the cash register when I pulled up with mask covering my nose and mouth
to pick up my prescription. Yah, kinda wigged her out for a second.
Anyway, so for the last 2 days me and the couch have been gettin' reacquainted. I've got a steady diet of Sprite and crackers goin' with an occasional bowl of soup or stack of pancakes mixed in. I apologize in advance to the environment, though... I think I've killed 3 trees worth of Kleenex tissues so far.
Other than the phot above that I fired off this afternoon, I haven't picked up my camera in a couple days. In fact, the 2 images below were from Saturday afternoon; the last time I felt good. Hmmm... maybe one of the spots below is ground zero.
|
|
|
|
|
Workflow Tip ~ Color Code Your Actions
February 18, 2010 ~ For Photographers
I've been surprised by the number of photograhers I've talked to recently who didn't know about color-coding actions in Photochop to make finding their actions easier. I guess I thought everyone did this, but in the words of Yoda, "Incorrect, I was."
Years ago when I was starting out, I bought nearly every action under the Photoshopped sun hoping to create magical images just like the people that were selling said actions. If only I could create images just like them... then I'd be succesful and have a "style". It took me while to figure out the only thing successful about that approach was how well I could mimic other people's images. At the same time I was spending more time than ever in Photochop, not less like the people advertising the actions said I would, because I spent for-ev-er playing with every new action on each image trying to figure out if the image would look better as a photographer X styled image or like photographer Y styled image. My "style" was all over the board because all I ended up with was such a wide range of image styles that I didn't know who I was as a photographer. Not to mention my images were looking way over-Photoshopped.
Since those early days I've really worked to define what makes my work [hopefully] unique to me, and along the way one of the most important - and time-saving - things I've learned is not what actions to use, but instead what actions not to use... and that's most of them. Don't get me wrong, I still fully-embrace digital technology - including actions - in adding emphasis to my images as quickly as possible. I've simply worked to define my style and then pick and choose the actions that help empahsize that style.
Sorry abou tthat little tangent. Anywho. One little trick that's helped shave time off my workflow is color-coding my actions in Photoshop according to what function they perform. For example, I'll group b&w actions with a color, utility actions (cropping, sharpning, formatting for blog, etc.) with another color, effect actions with another color, texture actions with yet another color, etc... Color coding helps me visually locate a set of actions and then a single action faster than if they were all the same color. And honestly, I've been a little sloppy in some of my color coding with some random outliers here and there, but it's amazing after a while how quickly your mind memorizes where actions are based on blocks of color.
The following is a quick little tutorial in case you want to give this a try.
Step 1 - Click the actions palette options icon to access the option to toggle from Button Mode to step-by-step mode. Note - if your actions are currently set to be viewed in non-Button Mode, you can skip Step 1 & 2.
|
Step 2 - Click "Button Mode" in the actions palette options menu to toggle off Button Mode. You need to be in non-Button Mode where you can see each recorded step in your actions.
|
Step 3 - Double-click in the open area to the right of an action title. IMPORTANT: If you double-click to the right of a step in the action rather than the action title, Photoshop will run that step instead of opening the Action Options dialog box.
Step 4 - With the Action Options dialog box open, you can change the color assigned to an action in Button Mode. Unfortunately there's still no way to select a group of actions and change their color all at once. I've been waiting for a while on that feature, but my feature request emails to Adobe have likely ended up in their Mailbox of Broken Dreams never to be seen or heard from again.
Bonus Points (optional) - With the Actions Options dialog box open you can also select a function key or combination of function + modifer keys (Shift & Command) to create a hot key(s) short cut to run an action. I do this for all of my most commonly used actions to save even more time in my workflow.
|
Step 5 - Repeat steps 1 & 2 to open up the actions palette options and click on "Button Mode" to toggle button mode back on. BTW, in case you were wondering, Button Mode allows you to run an action or set of actions recorded as one action with a single mouse click.
For some of you, this is old hat. Hopefully, though, this is helpful for a few of you out there. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I seem to run into a fair number of people out there that didn't know abou tthis little gem. If that's you, give it a try and see if - once you get used to it - you don't find yourself shaving a little time off your workflow.
|
|
Page
1
of 73
|
 |
2010 Archives
2009 Archives
2008 Archives
| Blog Stats:
Posts 364
Comments 2,995
Visits 390,781
Page views 1,177,929
|
 |
|
|
|
