Artist Spotlight | Brian Matiash

Today marks our third installment of the Artist Spotlight here on the blog. This series is a personal project for me, and I am loving every minute of it. It’s simply a way for me to take artists that I appreciate, and share them with the readers of this blog. Art needs to be shared with the world, and how cool is it that we have resourceful ways of doing just that in this day and age? In the early days of the Impressionists, an artist would have to work his entire life sometime to get his work in front of an audience. There was a very clear cut and defined path to getting into the Salon’s and if you didn’t follow that exact path, you probably were out of luck. Today there are so many amazing ways to share the work of artists, and this is my way. It has no other point or purpose than to share. And that is fine by me

Brian is one of the few HDR photographers that I consistently follow and admire. I found one of his images on HDR Spotting of the Royal Clipper (which is included below) and had to see more of his work. From there, I was taken to his blog where I discovered his little niche in HDR processing, known as UrbEx which I will let Brian explain. Sure, there are plenty of UrbEx photographers out there. And UrbEx is nothing new. But Brian has fashioned his own style by introducing HDR processing into it as well as the implementation of tilt shift lenses and extreme wide angles. The places he goes to get these images make me nervous just looking at them, and that’s what keeps me coming back for more. One of these days I will make it up north and meet Brian in person, but until then I am very excited to have him featured here on the blog.

• If you are an artist or creative and would like to be considered for our Artist Spotlight Series, shoot us an email at ArtistSpotlight (at) james-brandon.com. Let us know who you are, what you do, and why we’ve just got to choose you! Don’t forget samples of your work

Artist Spotlight | Brian Matiash

How can we find you?

Portfolio – http://brianmatiash.com
Blog – http://brianmatiash.com/blog
Twitter – http://twitter.com/brianmatiash
Facebook – http://facebook.com/brianmatiash

Tell us who you are

My name is Brian Matiash. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and currently live just outside of Boston, MA. Growing up in an urban area as diverse and dense as New York City shaped a lot of my sensibilities around how I compose and stylize my images. I gravitate towards these urban areas and am enamored with photographing the ever-changing trends in exterior and interior architecture. In my off-time, I love hunting out abandoned areas of whatever city/town that I happen to be in to capture what happens when utter neglect and desolation sets in. This style of Urban Exploration (UrbEx) photography offers me a huge creative outlet because of how diverse the subject matter is.

About four years ago, I stumbled onto a style of imaging that I had never encountered before. The sheer amount of tone and detail that was presented in every part of the image, from the shadows through the mid-tones and onto the highlights, was unlike anything that I had ever seen. Further research into this style led me to High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. I’ve been a devotee ever since, spending almost all of my time learning and mastering the technique.

The rest is history.

How did you get started in your field?

I started my adventures in photography around 1997, mostly messing around with my Kodak Advantix film camera, taking snapshots and building massive debt over film development costs. When consumer-grade digital cameras became affordable (around 1999 for me), I picked up a Fujifilm pocketcam (all 1.5 megapixels of it) and went to town with experimenting on developing my sense of composition. It allowed me to be so much more prolific with my failures, and eventual successes, by instantly being able to preview the images and not have to spend money/time to develop film.

A few years later, I picked up my very first dSLR camera – the Canon EOS Digital Rebel. For the first time since I picked up a camera, I had full control over the holy trinity of photography – Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. All of a sudden, I had this new playing field to expand my creativity. I was truly controlling the exposure.

And I haven’t stopped since.

What inspires you?

I’ve said it many times and it still holds true – photography is a very holy thing. There is something so special about taking a single moment in time and making it memorable. I strive to create these memories by infusing my own experiences, biases, and sensibilities when I am behind the camera and in front of the computer.

I am also on my own little personal crusade to show people the potential of HDR photography. There is so much of a built-up stigma around HDR that a lot of photographers may feel intimidated to even begin trying to experiment with it. We all start at the beginning with HDR (as well as photography, in general). Making the mistakes and falling down are integral to growing in this field. And it never ends. For every image that I am happy with and post on my blog, there are 10 more that make me cringe. The goal is to work passed it and learn from it.

Share some of your work

Royal Clipper

This is the Royal Clipper, the world’s largest square rigged sailing vessel. I took this shot off of the coast of Amalfi, in Italy. This is one of my favorite images that I’ve ever been lucky enough to take. I was one of three other photographers who were granted permission to circle the Royal Clipper with its sails down on our own private tender. The combination of the actual composition and post processing allowed me to realize and share that fantasy feeling that this scene evokes. It also reaffirmed just how impressive of an HDR result one can achieve from a single RAW exposure.

Pennybacker Bridge

This is the Pennybacker Bridge in Austin, TX. I am very fond of this shot for several reasons. First, it was one of the very first Tilt Shift HDR panoramic shots that I had taken and I couldn’t have asked for a cooler subject to stretch out or better weather for it. Second, I was visiting my friend, and esteemed photographer, Jack Hollingsworth, and he had arranged for us to spend most of the day shooting, eating, and chatting with HDR Zen Master, Trey Ratcliff. It was certainly one of the most memorable shoots that I’ve been on.

Disconnected

I wanted to include this shot because it serves an important purpose for me and I hope it helps others. Just before taking this shot, I was cruising through an epic funk. It lasted weeks. I would go out on a shoot and nothing would happen. The spark wasn’t there and I felt like I was more or less just going through the motions of pressing a shutter release button. And then I saw this payphone. I don’t know what it was – maybe the way the handset was dangling or the way the golden hour light was shining on the phone but it just clicked. I felt a surge of creativity and ended up having an awesome shoot. So, anytime I feel like I’m just coming up short in creativity, I bring up this image and just let it all sink in.

Diesel

We shoot. A lot. Tons and tons, actually. That is the wonder of digital photography. But, shooting to our heart’s content can also likely lead to overshooting. That is, creating such a backlog of images that you may not get a chance to give each deserving shot its due. Take this shot, for instance. I remember taking this shot… in March of 2008. It made it to the blog on August 03rd, 2010. And the thing is, I really dig this shot and am glad that I did have a reason to dig deep into my photo archive and find it. It’s something that I think we all should do as a matter of practice every now and again.

Sit Down Now

I love to bring out some sort of beauty and art out of something or some place that can be so ‘unappealing’. That is why I am such a fan of Urban Exploration (UrbEx) photography. A solid UrbEx location is usually filled with tons of contradictions to what you are used to seeing. Take this shot. We’ve all seen these auditorium style folding seats in our schools growing up. But, how many people have seen it in these conditions? The hunt to find these locations, find a cool shot, and process them is what gets me revved up every single time.

What are your plans for the future?

For now, I am still working on developing out the commercial side of my photography career. I’ve been so fortunate to photograph some gorgeous hotels, restaurants, and real estate properties – all of which have benefited with the right kind of HDR processing. In time, I hope to build on that.

Additionally, I have been more and more involved with the educational track of HDR photography. I’ve presented at several local photography clubs, demoed my HDR workflow on the Expo Floor at Photoshop World, and am prepping for a series of online webinars with OnOne Software. It really has been a blast sharing my own lessons in HDR photography with so many eager people. I look forward to more adventures there.

Anything else you’d like to share?

The best piece of advice that I can share with anyone interested is this: unless you are being paid by a client to photograph a specific product, location, person, or anything, just shoot and process for yourself. Pretend like you are the only person who will ever see the image. Craft your ability to shoot what you like. Learn to process to your own taste. Criticism is an important part of photography, but if you don’t know why you took that shot or processed it that way to begin with, you will never really refine your own style.