I mentioned a while ago that personal projects were going to be making a come back and one is indeed, well under way.

Recycling is the broader umbrella I’ve chosen to work under and so far I’m looking into what it’s all about, finding my feet. Things like steel, cars, batteries, printer cartridges, plastic, e-waste and glass have all popped up on my radar. Discovering the stories to be told within one of those sub-topics, narrowing it down and focusing on a more specific area is how I’m going to create the photo essay. One of my goals setting out on this project was to let the story present itself to me with a bit of serendipity, rather than going in with an agenda or angle already in my head, so much of the editorial work I do is assigned to me with the outcome predetermined, that working in the polar opposite way is making this fresh, exciting and is letting my vision as a photographer lead me through the discovery process.

The photo below is a sneak peek at the sort of thing I’ve found… Watch this space for a photo essay soon!

A quick look behind the scenes today.

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If you are going to read only one thing online today (after this, obviously), make it this post from Zack Arias’s new site “Ask Me Anything About Photography“.

He’s put very complex pricing structures, in a real world nutshell and without this turning into a “I love Zack” post… I really do love the quality content he shares with the world, it just seems to be real world focused, well my world anyway.

He is not the only one out there giving people a look behind the curtain, not by any means. Over at aphotoeditor (APE) they quite often have pricing posts like this one. The thing is, I don’t see much of this work going around and find it hard to connect with it. Anyway, click the links and have a quick read it’s educating stuff.

Cheers, Matt

Personal work has all but stopped in the last six months, not because I wanted to stop shooting or because the ideas stopped flowing by any means, it’s just that life has been in the way (my last post has a clue or two in it!) I’ve just found that between the editorial and commercial work I’ve been shooting, mixed with spending enough time at home so everyone recognises my face and we can call ourselves a happy family, I’ve just not had heaps of spare time to shoot much personal work.
Anyway, I’ve noticed lately the voice in my head is saying “You know, this would be a really cool location to shoot…” and the voice is getting louder and more frequent, to the point where it is getting hard to ignore it.
So, no more fighting the voice, personal shoots are back on the agenda.

At 10:38am on the 5th of January 2012, Bodee Devlin entered the world.

While I have a huge amount I want to write, today the pictures do the talking.

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The idea is simple, take Katy and her horse Missy’s portrait.

I had two ideas one; with old wooden fences and the other on a bush track and Katy had moved close to some bushland so we took that option. Read the rest of this page »

Shooting graffiti artists is a little tricky, I mean it’s not like it’s legal so an air of caution must be used, you need to go all secret squirrel on it. How did I do that? I simply faked the shots and what you are about to read is fictional, I have made the whole thing up.

What, you don’t believe me?… Good luck proving other wise

Early in the afternoon on a Tuesday I find myself waiting at a foot bridge running over a small creek in the outer suburbs, caught between two busy HWY’s. Not that you would know standing there, things are green, the trees are tall and the vegetation is thick enough to muffle the worst of the road noise, it’s quite a nice place really.

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I met Kate through an assignment I was shooting for a local newspaper, we got talking and the conversation got to my personal work (most of what you see here on the blog). I thought Kate and her family would be a perfect fit for my style of shooting. After a bit of back and forth we came up with an idea for a shoot with her family by the lake but… the photo has a twist.

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I have an idea for a shoot that needs a beautiful landscape to make it work and I think I found it this week!

The light needs to be different and the crop is way off but I can see this being a stunning spot, I drove in to speak to the owners today but they were not home, bugger!
I will try again but watch this space people this is going to be a good one

This also might be a good chance to post updates and keep a running tab on the progress, just to give people an insight to how a photo comes together and how long it really takes to make an image.

To bring you up to speed, I had an idea about shooting a woman in a long flowing dress floating in the breeze letting a bird land on her arm (I have not decided if I want doves, hawk or a crow just yet) and I wanted the woman to be quite glamorous looking but the background to be completely different to really add contrast and add “wow” but did not know what background I wanted until now

Ok more as it happens.