The Digital Trekker Blog - Latest Comments

Re: One Day in the Life of a Man’s Monastery

Sergey Yazvinsky — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:11:42 -0000

Glad you liked it, I still have something for you

The legend of the first Mystery of the Сosmos
http://vimeo.com/22278057

History of Christianity in Abkhazia
http://vimeo.com/28862143

Abkhazia "Mamdzisha" trip
http://vimeo.com/7832837

Sergey.

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Davide Petilli — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:34:31 -0000

I'd like to link a post I've just found on the IPA blog. I think this can add to the conversation.
http://invisiblephotographer.a...

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Melissa — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:37:04 -0000

Thanks, Coach. I'm headed out to practice what you're preaching. Your thoughts are inspiring.

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

Rad — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:26:41 -0000

long wait is over. always a pleasure to learn from you both. thank you.

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

Erin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:25:17 -0000

Great conversation, Matt. I've got Storytellers on my to-read pile, and I think it's going to make it's way to the top of the pile.

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

R.J. Hinkle — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:51:59 -0000

Great job guys, great interview!

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

brianhirschy — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:36:37 -0000

Only because I'm beautiful...

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

Matt Brandon — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:21:16 -0000

We love you too!

Re: Depth of Field: Jerod Foster

brianhirschy — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:29:36 -0000

Great interview - Matt and Jerod. Two of my favorite people and good friends interviewing each other. Enjoyed it all the way through!

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Davide Petilli — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:01:07 -0000

I always thought photography is all about luck, but this doesn't mean talent doesn't play its part. I think the ability of the photographer to attract lucky shots is the prevailing characteristic of the best photographers out there.
We say "luck favors the brave", and that's it. If a photographer can be receptive, his chances of getting "lucky" shots goes up. Can we still call this luck? I don't think.
You wrote an excellent article, and you said everything there is to say about failure as a means to growth. This isn't just photography, but it's true in every aspect of life.
I started a travel photography blog recently. It is in english which isn't my mother tongue. This pushes my comfort zone like crazy. Maybe nobody will care about my blog. Maybe my poor english will annoy my readers. Maybe I'm just presumptuous. I don't know, but I'll keep pushing myself, because I want to stretch my comfort zone, and I want to grow as a photographer and a person.

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Matt Brandon — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:58:16 -0000

Radoslaw, Thanks for chiming in. I am not sure the SLR or any camera is the issue. They are just the tools of our craft. Certainly, they can get in the way. But they do add to our abilities if, and only if, we know how to use them. What good is a host of brushes and pallet knives if the painter only knows how to use one brush. Really it is all about our willingness to stretch our self and risk to the point of failure. Are we learning from our past mistakes? Are asking ourselves why things happened and what can I do to get this or that image and then try it. Who cares if it came out like crap? You've learned something new: what doesn't work. Now keep pressing on till you find what works.

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Radoslaw Komuda — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:45:27 -0000

(d)SLR as P'n'C? Sooo true. Gear is good, vision is better. Conscious approach to the technical aspect of taking a photo, with all the settings is important but what I think is a great start for beginning photographers is - make technically good photos, not "artistic" ones and focus on the frame in the first place. The moment you make the habit of checking the frame edges - start thinking about other settings.
Or - don't. Stop thinking about getting a fancy camera because a better pot won't make your dishes taste better, will it? Owning a (d)SLR is, IMHO, a pursuit for perfection. And the moment you get yourself one and withdraw that chase - you end up with two cameras. And money not-as-well-spent.

As a bonus:
Matt, have you seen the Scalado Remove and Scalado Rewind? It's amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Matt Brandon — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:05:36 -0000

Thank you for letting me know that Heber. That means a lot.

Re: Failure the foundation to greatness.

Heber Vega — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:23:12 -0000

Great post Matt. I don't have anything to add except to thank you for this and the previous post. Both have spoken a lot to my work.
Thanks!

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

Matt Brandon — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:04:46 -0000

Kind of opposite to what I was using as an example, but exactly the same point. After time and the dust settles, we not only see the gems we didn't see before, but we see some stuff that our connection to the moment really clouded our judgment on. We now see them objectively and realize they don't below in the cut after all. Good point.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

Matt Brandon — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:27 -0000

Yeah, Lightroom 4 is freaking amazing! But the beta is really full of bugs, be careful. I recently went through images form Sumatra from 2 years ago and found some new gems that I just didn't see. It also helps that a few of them I had given up on as the light/exposure was not the best, but I was able to really work with these and pull some nice stuff out in LR 4b.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

Matt Brandon — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:56:52 -0000

The invite has been given to him. Just waiting to hear back.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

peter berg — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:42:48 -0000

I'm hearin' ya! I looked over my portfolio and thought "why on earth is that picture in there!" Good reminder - must re-visit :)

Re: A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

Fernando C. da Silva — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:53:43 -0000

Matt, thanks for sharing this piece with us.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

Ed — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:17:23 -0000

I just finished that same chapter in Steve Simon's book and am really enjoying it. I'd love to hear him with you on Depth of Field. For me the hardest thing to do is let the body of work sit when you have little out there already. However, I am managing to do that for two long term projects I am working on. I do make some selections as I go but very rarely immediately after finishing. So my process is very similar to yours and his when working on a personal project: upload everything to the computer because ultimately you cannot feel an image even on the larger LCD screens of cameras today > delete those that are wildly out of focus or completely missed the moment/composition > let them sit and brew for a while, weeks or months > start to make some wide selections and edit gradually from there. I hope to start putting working prints of selections for the final edit up on my wall soon for one of these projects and select from there.

I imagine editing for a client is quite different as hopefully you know what they want having discussed it beforehand and so can edit for that specifically. But on top of that you can through in some absolute corkers that stand out to you and therefore show them the creativity or eye they hired in the first place and maybe they go with one of those instead.

I'll confess this is coming from someone who is not in the industry but that is how it seems to me having worked with one client and on mostly personal stories until now. Would love to hear any more discussion around this.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

Matt Welsh — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:36:09 -0000

This is absolutely true for me. I often send out exactly what the client needs and I'm confident about, and then archive off the rest. Anywhere from 6 months to a year later I comb through them again using the same narrowing system I first use and I usually find new images I'd dismissed at first pass.

Re: Distanced makes the heart grow fonder.

cfimages — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:00:56 -0000

I take a similar approach. If it's an assignment, I'll send selects to the client ASAP and then leave the rest archived months or years later. If it's personal work, I'll often do a rough edit with the 1 star rating basically to weed out the junk. Then I'll let those sit for anywhere from days to months before going back and refining that done to a selection that get processed. Everything gets archived even the junk - hard drive space is cheap, after all. I've recently taken a look through some of my earliest DSLR images shot in Thailand in early 2005 as I made the transition from chromes to pixels. Some images that I thought were terrible, have actually received a new lease of life thanks to a mixture of Lightroom 4 and Nik Color Efex 4.

Re: My day with the Fuji X100

Jon Ball — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:02:23 -0000

Saw the x100 for the first time tonight. I was surprised at how light it was. But the finish is excellent as was the overall balance and size. Fuji hit a home run with this one. BTW I really like the close up of the bottle. thanks for sharing!

Re: A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

Ben — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:00:53 -0000

thanks for your work and story

Re: A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

CathyTopping — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:05:00 -0000

Thanks for sharing Matt. What a fascinating, eye-opening piece.