hiking...finally

I have been looking forward to hiking all winter. Like get out for a day and scale some mountains hiking. But sadly we do not have that kind of hiking here in Wisconsin. The closest is Devils Lake State Park, an overly popular tourist attraction north of town that we had visited before. We had never liked because of the “tourists” huffing up the hillside. This last week I made it a point to try it again; it might be the combination of going out “early” in the spring or the fact that I went on a weekday, but the crowd I was expecting wasn’t in attendance. It was awe-inspiring to see tall pine trees, stand at the edge of a 200 foot cliff, and loose my breath hiking up the hillside. I really need to do this more through the summer.

happy b-day mom

Mom,
Have a great day today on your Birthday.
I took these the other day as I was walking back from the post office thinking of you..
Enjoy!
Matt

some images from my last trip

Here are a couple images from my last trip to Ohio State. I tried to carry my still camera with me more so that I would not forget to take stills while I was shooting video...I still didn't mix the two as well as I wanted. I guess it is really as hard as I am feeling.

Technical: For those that like lighting, here is the video lighting setup for the above portrait; 5 lights total plus daylight seeping in through the window.  the idea was to make it look like there was no lights used.  Key light is a soft box at camera left at 90 degrees, fill is a smaller soft box at camera right close to camera zero, one background light (out of picture below) is camera left hitting the back wall and another is camera right shooting back at us hitting the stack of papers, hair light directly behind subject didn't really do anything, and outside sunlight filling in blue behind.

mid week edit

I just got back from Ohio State with InterVarsity. Four of us went down for a week to cover the Ohio State Price of Life. It was a large campaign to raise awareness about slavery in the US and connect it to the overarching spiritual problem, you can find out more on their website. One of the things that we did was produce a mid-week edit of the events. This is the 21 hour edit that I did over night but I can’t take all the credit at all. Val cataloged all of our several hundred Gigs worth of footage, Steve sorted through a bit of it looking for great clips and David directed and made a strategic plan to edit to, as well as stayed up all night with me.


OSU Price of Life Mid-Week Edit from InterVarsity/Twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

freezing my subject in warm weather

Over the weekend I taught a workshop at Black Hawk Church (I am part of a photo club there, even though that is not my home church) on freezing your subject. We talked about how you can use shutter speed as well as flash to make your subject freeze in your image. We also got onto tangents like peak action, composition (to make your image look like it is moving), panning with a subject and several other fun stuff. After the mini tutorial we went out to the parking ramp (or parking garage for all my Cali peeps) to try it out.

So here are some behind the scenes shots, I always think it is funny looking to turn around and take a photo of all the photographers taking the same photo, but it is ok here because that was the point. Oh, and that is Steve S jumping off of a low wall for a high speed shot. I took my turn at jumping after him only to split my pants down the back, little embarrassing. Luckily I had a jacket on that I could use a skirt for the rest of the tutorial. That reminds of that time I was in Matt T’s Wedding and right before the reception I….

easter kids

Sarah and I hosted some friends this Easter again. (You might think we like doing that or somthin.) I just had to grab the camera when the kiddies started playing “role me up like a burrito.” They even got Mike to be one of their ingredients too.

forcing myself to get out

The weather has been amazing lately, but why is it that whenever I go to Indian Lake it is dreary and overcast? Oh well, you get to make the best with what you got, right? I had in mind great big wide shots of light coming though trees and highlighting the white trees along the path, but when there is no light I needed to focus on the details. So that is what I tried to do. Oh, and I stole the idea of lighting up the inside of the chapel from Steve S.

Why is it that I always have great intentions the night before but never want to get out of bed the day of? That was the case yesterday, I really didn’t want to get out and see the outside when my bed was so warm and comfortable. The only reason I did was because I had called Steve L and Mike the night before. It was all worth it once we got out there, and it is fun to get out with others too.