» Shoot Report

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part V

Matt — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:00:46 +0000

One more article for my ongoing series related to re-processing my archived images.

While you may not be new, just for ease of access you may visit my other articles related to this series at the following links below:

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part I – Old Sheldon Church

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part II – Sope Creek

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part III – Abandoned Prison Farm

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part IV – Amicalola Falls

As you might have suspected, I have a fondness for abandoned buildings/homes. Late last year I happened upon this little gem in my travels and though it’d be a fantastic spot to take advantage of this summer. Below is some of my re-processed scouting shots for your review!

I hope you enjoy my re-processed & re-envisioned high dynamic range view of this fantastic spot! As always, seriously, don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!

Enjoy!

Wedding: Dim Horizon Studios Big Day

Nicole — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:00:33 +0000

It would be best to being by saying that my wife never dreamed that she would end up marrying a photographer. It’s not that Nicole has anything against photographers, it’s more that she’s spent most of her life doing her best to avoid cameras in general. So, of course, she had to go and marry one just to prove that it can be done.

Like most brides, she really wanted her 15 minutes in the spot light with a gorgeous dress while surrounded by our friends and family. The big thing was that we were both quite budget conscious and didn’t want the horrendous price tag typically associated with weddings. (That and she knew, given the chance, I’d be halting the ceremony every so often to capture my special day with my soon to be wife.)

After a great deal of discussion, we both decided the easiest solution for us was a destination wedding where everything would be taken care of; including a photographer. For me, that was a hard concession to make but I knew my lovely wife Nicole was right when she said the day was about us and I simply couldn’t be in two places at once regardless of my desire to do so.

In the end, we decided on a Las Vegas Wedding. We even watched the “Hangover” to be certain we knew how to NOT do the whole affair.

While it was true, not everyone could join us on our joyous day, we still were surrounded by many of our closest friends and family. After the ceremony, Nicole was kind enough to entertain me by running around the Las Vegas strip to allow me to get some amazing shots of my beautiful wife. Las Vegas Weddings may not be for everyone; but we were both quite happy to take advantage of the opportunity for our day.

And, of course, Nicole managed to get her 15 minutes in the spot light. I will say though, she’ll always remain in the spot light in my heart.

Here are a few of shots taken by Dim Horizon Studio

To book a Wedding Package, check availability, or if you simply have questions please contact Dim Horizon Studio at or Contact Us Directly

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part IV

Matt — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:00:57 +0000

One more article for my ongoing series related to re-processing my archived images.

While you may not be new, just for ease of access you may visit my other articles related to this series at the following links below:

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part I – Old Sheldon Church

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part II – Sope Creek

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part III – Abandoned Prison Farm

I hope you enjoy my re-processed & re-envisioned high dynamic range view of this fantastic spot! As always, seriously, don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!

Enjoy!

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part III

Matt — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:00:40 +0000

As you might have guessed it, this is more article for my ongoing series related to re-processing my archived images.

While you may not be new, just for ease of access you may visit my other articles related to this series at the following links below:

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part I – Old Sheldon Church

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part II – Sope Creek

With that said, this article is about a location you’ve seen quite extensively across my site. The Abandoned Prison Farm located near Atlanta, Georgia. Since I’ve been showcasing my work from this fantastic location for some time now, and you would like to review some of my normal work you may do so in these following articles:

The Abandoned Prison: The Fire

The Abandoned Prison: Part II

The Abandoned Prison: Part I

I hope you enjoy my re-processed & re-envisioned high dynamic range view of this fantastic spot! Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!

Enjoy!

Event Report: St. Patrick’s Day Streetfest

Matt — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:00:17 +0000

This past St. Patrick’s Day ended up being quite a busy and fantastic day spent in Woodstock. I should say this with the point that I’m trying to get more involved in local shows; and after finding out about this event I thought it’d be a great environment for myself as a local artist.

Ultimately my goal for the day was to sell a little work (as always), but also showcase some of my new HDR work. In additional to all that also show off a magnificent canvas print of one of my bioshock pieces. (If you haven’t had a chance to view the article related to this work in particular, you may catch the article here and then the prints here

Also, If you weren’t able to attend the festival, you can see all that I had on display here

My most popular piece of the day was this one:

I have to say, I was a little surprised by the general response to the work. While, I’ll freely admit, I love the shot, I had more individuals and couples walk up quickly to ask if it was some location I had never heard of. While I’m somewhat used to this response, what was surprising was that not a single person/couple said the same place. Each had someplace entirely different with their own unique story that they shared, and always had a smile when they looked at my shot.

I really have to say it’s always really such a pleasure to have individuals identify with my work as intimately as so many did that day and share their story with me.

The rest of the day though was just delightful. The weather, sales, and also getting to spend the day with so many talented artists was simply inspiring. I really didn’t get that many shots during the day, but I was able to take a few. Enjoy and thank you again to all that came by!

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part II

Matt — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:00:37 +0000

As you might have guessed, seeing “Part I” in the title for the previous article this is going to be an ongoing series given my recent effort to reprocess a whole host of my archived images.

If you are just now coming to my site, please feel free to take a look at the articles below:

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part I – Old Sheldon Church

This article is related to one of my favorite and commonly used location, Sope Creek. If you get a chance, I’d highly suggest taking the family out to visit this location (you can find information about it in some of my previous articles about it).

While it does take a small hike to access the old ruins, it’s really quite worth it to experience such a magnificent slice of history. I hope you enjoy my re-processed & re-envisioned high dynamic range view of this fantastic spot! Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!

Enjoy!

Wedding: Shawn & Michelle

Nicole — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:00:01 +0000

There is nothing quite like seeing old friends start new beginnings.

Even more so, when you get to be a part of it; for me being the photographer of two wonderful people who happen to also be friends starting their lives together.

I had the pleasure of working with both Shawn & Michelle on their engagement shoot a few months ago and I was honestly quite thrilled to be asked to also do their wedding as well. The wedding itself held a great deal of symbolic meaning to this fantastic couple. The date of the wedding was specifically chosen to fall on Valentines Day and this also happened to be during the time for celebrating the Chinese New Year.

While there was some concern surrounding the weather that week (you may see a few articles I posted about it previously at the links below) the day of was something out of a fairy tale. The temperature outside was cool and crisp, allowing for the snow to stick long enough for some amazing pictures.

Winter Wonderland in Georgia: Part II

Winter Wonderland in Georgia: Part I

Everyone here at Dim Horizon Studio’s wishes Shawn & Michelle the best of luck to their future.

Here’s a couple of shots taken during the event by Dim Horizon Studio

To book a Wedding Package, check availability, or if you simply have questions please contact Dim Horizon Studio at or Contact Us Directly

Event Report: MomoCon

Matt — Wed, 12 May 2010 10:05:16 +0000

If you didn’t get a chance to go to MomoCon a few months ago then I have to say next year I’d highly suggest you make plans to attend. Located on the large Georgia Tech Campus, the convention as a whole was quite a display of what can be organized with a few talented and passionate individuals.

MomoCon is free convention with all sorts of perks given to those that donate a little extra or buy an upgraded passes. Even with that said, it really is a well run convention and has a little bit of everything wherever your interests may lay in the Anime subculture. For me, I was surprisingly contacted by one of the lead organizers on MomoCon Twitter and was invited to attend, and even wore an awesome special guest pass while attending.

I will also say that when registration opens their “free” block of passes (they have to limit their numbers due to the regulations of the campus) go quite quickly. So register as soon as you get a chance!

MomoCon’s Website

For MomoCon 2010, I primarily participated in two panels; one centered around Steampunk Costuming & Design, and the other on Cosplay Photography; or as I like to call it, Basic Portraiture.
I’ll be the first to admit I was a bit lost for words during the Steampunk Costuming & Design. I didn’t quite know where to interject my thoughts on the entire affair given my perspective as a photographer. Mostly I let the tremendously talented Matt, Erin, John of Penny Dreadful Productions and Meredith, Joseph of Outlander Armour take it away.

I will say in general, and from a down and dirty sort of view, shooting specialized costumes typically only takes a extra effort in the sense as a photographer you have to ensure your composition truly takes advantage of whatever your shooting. This can also be said for any specialized post processing techniques you might decide to use.

In the case of my Steampunk photography, I let the client/costume tell the story by putting them in a unique environment and ensure that I properly light the stunning wardrobe. On the post-processing end of things, its quite easy to convert images to sepia or to give them an aged sort of look and this typically enhances to story element of the shots. However; I say this also with the understanding that any technique can be overused and should like any seasoning in a meal be used appropriately and sparingly.

On the other hand, when I spoke during the Cosplay Photography panel with Meredith, I’d like to think I had a little more understanding of the entire affair. Meredith and I spoke to the basic tenets of model / photographer relationships.

Communication

Photographer’s responsibilities

Model Releases

Composition

Lighting

While Meredith and I didn’t have nearly enough time to cover all the bases when it comes to Cosplay/Portraiture Photography it was really overall a great experience. One of my soon to be clients katie even got a couple of snapshots of us during the panel. If you attended or even if you have some general questions yourself please don’t hesitate to let me know!

High Dynamic Range – Reprocessed: Part I

Matt — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:00:52 +0000

Let me begin this article by saying I’ve never really deleted any pictures I’ve taken. After reading that statement, I’m sure you’re thinking… good lord… there must be tons of pictures everywhere.

Well… you’re right.

As a self-taught photographer, I’ve walked quite a unique path to be at where I am today. As part of that, I’ve always kept all my images to really see where I’ve been but also as my skills develop in processing my images I can revisit old images with new tools & techniques.

As an example, I’ve dabbled in the past in HDR processing of images. If you’re not familiar with HDR, it stands for High Dynamic Range Imaging and you can read more about it here on Wikipedia.

With that said, the resulting images processed in this manner tend to be quite surreal and beautiful which aligns delightfully with my own creative vision.

Recently, I invested in a new tool for processing HDR images and with that, this series of articles was born. Let me share with you my reprocessed images from one of my favorite locations, Old Sheldon Church. If you missed the few articles I’ve written about the location, you may access them below!

Old Sheldon Church

Escape to Hilton Head Island

I hope you enjoy my re-processed & re-envisioned high dynamic range view of this fantastic spot! Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!

Abandoned Prison: The Fire

Matt — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:00:57 +0000

I have to say, 2009 was really not the best of years for abandoned homes/locations in Georgia. As you may have noticed, I wrote about two particular locations recently (and linked below if you missed them) I’ve used previously that were lost to new development or general land upkeep.

Extraordinary Places Lost: Part II

Extraordinary Places Lost: Part I

Much to my own dismay, one of the more popular abandoned locations in Atlanta wasn’t able to avoid this unlucky curse either. The Abandoned Prison I wrote about before was set ablaze by someone thinking it might be funny to leave their mark on the city in a violent and destructive way.

You can catch the article still on AJC.com (Atlanta Journal & Constitution).

I quickly made it down to the location the weekend after learning of the fire to see what was left. Thankfully, it looks as though only the entire second floor of the place was destroyed leaving a share of the unique gem still untouched by flames.