matt's pictures

niles again

Last day of april, down to the last hour and half. I didn’t make a post a day, but I made one almost every weekday, and that’s something.

These photos are from May, when we went down to Niles to hang out with John and Grant and Damaris. There are a couple film scans from that same day I’m still working on, to be posted later (and I need to get the color film developed, still).

So here’s today.

Posted on 2018-05-01T05:32:03Z GMT

been scanning film

like the title says, I’ve been scanning a bunch of film tonight. Shot some today too, hopefully a few of those are good. this whole blogging every day has me short on things to post. I’ve got a couple big events lined up, odd salon with the 500mm and a fancy olive oil themed dinner, and a few little things, but the big pile of unpublished mess is no more. There’s probably stuff in the archive that I could go fish for, like I did the post about trees. The trip out to see the trees was really memorable, but there’s not a ton from last fall I want to go digging for or that I’m excited about. The past is passed. Onward!

Posted on 2018-04-27T08:59:04Z GMT

a bunch of (pretty) trees

Also pictures of some things that aren’t trees. This was last fall, right after my birthday, when my folks came to town. For some reason, I never blogged these photos. We drove out to Sequoia National Park one of the days, and got to see the biggest (by volume and weight) tree in the world.

This catches me up for today, and I don’t have anything deep to say.

Posted on 2018-04-26T06:38:33Z GMT

expose for the highlights

The adage for shooting slide film was always “expose for the highlights, develop for the shadows,” because slides had the same problem digital sensors had, even with many stops less dynamic range. The highlights, once gone, are super gone. Gone forever. The shadows, you could burn in while printing and get extra out of them.

I did that here in the first photo (although my edges aren’t perfect, this is a blog post not the MOMA). I exposed probably a stop and a half under what the meter was reading, and got the detail in the clouds. The rest, for the most part, was gotten in post, two separtate masks to get the trees and river right. The trees that stick into the sky are the hardest to get right, and even though I’ve tried, they’re still not quite there. There’s probably some photoshop trickery to make it work that I don’t care enough about to learn.

Sophie, sans makeup, being very tolerant of my bullshit.

Posted on 2018-04-25T21:42:06Z GMT

kawan's birthday 2018

End of February. Winter doldrums were getting kicked out for some spring energy. I ate before I went, something I don’t even remember, and then there was a lot of food and booze when I got there, always a good sign. It was a most excellent party, with dancing and champagne and every single person there was really rad. Which makes sense, since Kawan is one of the raddest dudes I know.

Lighting conditions were mixed, again, but most of these were salvageable. The middle black and white I could have balanced but I liked it better black and white. The last one there was no way I was getting that right.

I fell in love with the little hallway. Kawan’s apartment/studio is one of those Escher spaces, that don’t make sense unless you draw a floor plan out. We have a lot of those here in SF. But the hallway, with the mirror, was like a perfect photo warp zone. I could shoot there all day Practically did, the party went on for quite a while.