matt's pictures

a weekend

So, about a week after I got back, we got together on the boat for something. It may have been Fallon’s birthday. Anyway, there was some drinking, followed by some sleeping, and then a ride to Sacremento to meet Fallon’s dad, where, for some reason, there was a person in a Bear suit that didn’t want to pose for a photo. The second to last photo is something I’ve been experimenting with, calling them ‘awkward compositions’. The idea is to take the natural composition, what I would instinctively do, and throw everything just a little off. So, instead of perfect thirds, you get half sky, half ground, and a line (the gaurdrail) going trough in the center. It’s an attempt to break out of my habits, more or less, and still make good photos. It’s hard to break habits that you’ve had for more than a decade; I’ve been a photographer longer than I’ve been anything else. I want to stay fresh, give myself challenges. I’ve been thinking of assignments beyond little composition exercises (which, after all, are just foreplay, practice for the main event). I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’m going somewhere.

Posted on 2013-08-23T05:58:09Z GMT

Howth

Every hike should end at a bar.

Posted on 2013-08-17T06:36:52Z GMT

I'm going to try not to bore you

I don’t want to bore you with tourist pictures, but I took a lot, and they made the edits, so this is one of two posts. I was ruthless editing these. Seriously. Anything redundant, or slightly boring got cut. I did about two days worth of actual tourism in my almost two weeks there; the rest of the time was spent working and laying around.

Posted on 2013-08-17T04:13:01Z GMT

ping pong in the office

So, all of the Engine Yard offices I’ve been in have ping pong tables. Secret to our success? Maybe. There is something about taking a break to do something physical while you’re thingking really hard on a problem for a long time. Moving around makes you forget some of the rigidity you had built up around the problems, and you have headspace then for solutions. I don’t really play ping pong, but I pace, I dance, whatever works. Sometimes I just need to stare out the window for a little while. Really, it’s stillness of mind that you’re after, the not-thinking. It’s the creative headspace, the white canvas. The moment of quiet before ideas come rushing to fill it. Beginner’s Mind: Stretching that moment out is Zen meditation (and one of the reasons I have a zen symbol tatooed on my arm). The longer you can stretch that moment out, the louder the ideas get. Sometimes, something really brilliant will come, other times, it’s just a solution to a tricky process problem. I know I should just post single images to twitter, but that’s so much harder to get to later, and this format makes the photos look better. Also, this is a good excuse to air my stupid ideas.