Matt Freedman Photography: Blog » Photo Shoots

2010 Seattle Erotic Art Festival

pmattf — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:36:22 +0000

I have posted my photos from Friday night at this year’s Seattle Erotic Art Festival. After just a few years, SEAF has rapidly become one of Seattle’s premiere cultural events, as well as one of its best parties. If you missed it this year, don’t let it happen again!

A few highlights are here, and the rest have been posted as an album on my Facebook page. BTW, Facebook has finally changed their ridiculous “fan” nomenclature, so if you want to get updates on what I post there, you no longer have to become my fan — you can just “like” me.

Click for larger images…

Graffiti

pmattf — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:46:28 +0000

I have been meaning to do a shoot at the closed and graffiti covered shell of the old Tubs in Seattle for a year. I finally got a chance to do it last weekend with metalsmith and model Mellington Cartwright (her metalwork is available at www.mellingtoncartwright.com).

Here are a few highlights, the full set is available on my Facebook fan page. Click for larger images…

Water Sines

pmattf — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:10:05 +0000

I have posted a set of photos from last night’s performance of Water Sines – Sidney Genette’s amazing multi-media performance at Seattle’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral. The complete gallery is on my Facebook fan page, but you can see a few highlights here.

Click for larger images…

La Figa: Behind the Scenes

pmattf — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:36:58 +0000

Work on the La Figa: Visions of Food and Form project is continuing – we should have some news to report on publication of the book some time this spring. Meanwhile, Tiberio and I continue to shoot. We recently did two different shoots with two different pairs of women and two different small round fruits (grapes and cherry tomatoes). We are saving the final images for the book, but here are some fun behind the scenes shots of the process (it is a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it)…

Click for larger images…

Seattle’s Sexiest Physician and Personal Trainer/Stripper

pmattf — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:21:10 +0000

Seattle’s alternative weekly paper, The Stranger, just announced their picks for Seattle’s Sexiest 2010 – the eight sexiest people in Seattle – and remarkably, both of our two cover models from this month’s sex issue of JUST CAUSE Magazine made the grade! A photo of mine of Lisa – now officially Seattle’s sexiest physician – is featured by The Stranger (the rest of the photos from that set have previously been featured here, and can be found on my Facebook fan page). Gabriel, Seattle’s sexiest personal trainer/stripper is also a good friend of mine, and one of my favorite models to work with.

Here are some bonus photos of two of Seattle’s sexiest people. Click for larger versions…

This month’s JUST CAUSE Magazine cover:

The photo of Lisa that The Stranger selected (see my Facebook Fan Page for more of the photos from this set):

A few of my favorite photos of Gabriel…

And these two, from the La Figa Project…

Fremont Winter Feast

pmattf — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:28:44 +0000

The Fremont Winter Feast is a winter solstice celebration put on by and for the Fremont Arts Council – the same group that puts on the Fremont Solstice Parade at the summer solstice (wow, has six months gone by already?). Here are a few shots, you will find a larger gallery on my Facebook fan page.

Click for larger images…

Maternity Nudes

pmattf — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:45:50 +0000

Here are some samples from a recent maternity shoot in my studio. Some of these are shot with a black paper background, and some in the “dungeon” – the back storage room, which is technically part of the Seattle Underground.

There are also few more (non-nude) images from this shoot available on my facebook fan page (which you are highly encouraged to join if you have not done so already).

Click for larger images…

Last Summer Shoot of 2009

pmattf — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:19:56 +0000

Based on how it feels outside today, I think the endless summer of 2009 has finally ended. But I did manage to squeeze in one final summer portrait session last week, out on the beach at Seattle’s Carkeek Park. It was a perfect day – warm, no wind, and clear skies all the way to sunset, giving us that perfect golden hour light.

The model is a naturopathic doctor who needs the photos for her website, though the look we went for is more fashion model portfolio than business portrait. Mostly because I like to make everybody look like fashion models.

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And we even managed to get some behind the scenes action shots (photos by Danny Berg)…

The Early Bird Gets the Dew

pmattf — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:27:29 +0000

A few weeks ago, just as the Seattle heatwave was starting (which soon led to our highest recorded temperature ever of 102 degrees) I really wanted to get out and climb Mount Dickerman. Due to its 4000′ elevation gain though, I really did not want to be climbing in the heat of the day. So I left my house at 5:30 AM, and was at the trailhead around 7:00. This got me to the first alpine meadows just as the sun was cresting a ridge at 9:30 AM, and hitting a patch of wildflowers for the first time that day, and thus still dew-covered. If you have seen my macro photography portfolio (i.e. ultra closeups), you may have noticed that I am a bit obsessed with dewdrops. So hitting a patch of wildflowers completely soaked in dew, yet being blasted by beautiful low-angle morning sunshine was basically like dying and going to heaven. Here are a few of my favorites from that morning…

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In fact, I was so obsessed, I barely noticed the flies that were swarming me…

Jeet Kune Do

pmattf — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:30:51 +0000

Here are a few images from a recent photo shoot with French martial artist Daniel Locicero – a certified Jeet Kune Do instructor (not to mention talented artist) currently residing in Seattle. Photographic hint of the day: when you want to highlight somebody’s muscle definition, side lighting is your friend.

(click images for larger versions)

And, BTW, yes, I also do regular old headshots…

Garden Macros

pmattf — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:31:30 +0000

The July/August issue of JUST CAUSE Magazine is all about food, and I did quite a bit of shooting in several Seattle community gardens for the Concrete Jungle story. Usually I do macro photography in the wild, or in decorative gardens, so shooting vegetable gardens was a change of pace. Here are a few of my favorites, only the first of which actually made it into the magazine…

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Lullaby Moon

pmattf — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:32:35 +0000

Here a few of my favorite photos from the Lullaby Moon performance in Seward Park a few weeks ago. Held on the night of the new moon every month, Lullaby Moon is “a year-long invitation to Seattle to explore a world of dream. A celebration of the night sky, the series of performance events brings bedtime whimsy and wonder to parks and other public spaces throughout the city, enlivening and enlightening the dark time of each month.”

The complete set of photos can be seen on my “friends and family” photo sharing site…
http://imageevent.com/pmattf/misc/lullabymoon

(click for larger versions)

Fremont Solstice Parade

pmattf — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:40:33 +0000

Last weekend was the Fremont Solstice Parade, perhaps the most photogenic event of the year here in Seattle. A handful of my favorite shots are posted here, but I have also posted a complete gallery of over 150 photos at http://imageevent.com/pmattf/fremont.

Click for larger versions…

It’s a Tough Job, but Somebody’s Got to Do It

pmattf — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:59:55 +0000

Here are some photos from a recent shoot for a local pole-dancing instructor, Ava. Her site is not up yet, but if you are interested in private pole dancing lessons, I can put you in touch with her. This was actually the first time I have shot in the back storage area of Studio Brick (the studio/gallery space I share with three other photographers in Seattle’s Pioneer Square). The storage area is pretty grungy – technically it is part of the Seattle Underground. It is actually under the street, so not even part of our building per se. It was actually an accident that we ended up back there at all – we were going to shoot in the main studio, but the ceilings were too high to set up the portable dance pole, and the storage area was the only place that worked. Definitely worked out for the best, I think these are much more interesting than they would have been on the plain black background I had been planning.

It was a pretty simple lighting setup, big softbox in the front left, and a gridspot in the right rear. And notice the big difference in lighting in the last shot. There I took the gridspot off, so it was a bare reflector, which casts a much much wider beam of light. So intead of just lighting Ava, it lit the whole room.

(click images for larger versions)

La Figa SHINES

pmattf — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:10:47 +0000

As mentioned in my recent post Painted Backdrops, we were recently in the studio/gallery of painter Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra, so Tiberio could be filmed in action creating a couple La Figa pieces for an upcoming movie. The title of the film is SHINE – it is a documentary about independent business people, produced by Dan McComb (co-founder founder of Biznik), and directed by Seattle film-maker Ben Medina. Here are some “making of” shots from that day…

(Pop quiz for the photographers reading this – why is the background so blue in the third shot? How would you fix it in post-processing if it bothered you?)

Painted Backdrops

pmattf — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:34:25 +0000

Use of painted backdrops is quite standard in photography. I generally find them to be ok at best, and horrifically cheesy at worst. But it is not every day you get to use absolutely gorgeous painted backdrops that are each worth substantially more than your car.

Yesterday, Tiberio and I brought the La Figa live installation to the studio/gallery of Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra – an incredibly talented painter, originally from Mexico, but now living and working in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. Tiberio is being featured in an upcoming documentary film, and we were there to get footage of him creating some La Figa pieces. Jose was kind enough to lend his space for the filming. More details about the movie (and of course still photos) will be coming in my next blog post, after I have had a chance to post-process the images.

While waiting for some extra video lighting to arrive, I did a spontaneous quick shoot with Reyna, one of our absolute favorite La Figa models. Regular readers (and anybody who was at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival this year) will undoubtedly recognize her. Jose generously allowed us to use his stunning canvases as the backdrop for these photographs.

Also note that Reyna is available for modeling gigs of all kinds. If you have a project that she would be suited for, and would like to get in touch with her about it, just drop me a line, and I will introduce you.

(Click for larger images)

La Figa at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival

pmattf — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:40:26 +0000

After all of these months of preparation, it is a bit hard to believe it is really over. But it is true, the 2009 Seattle Erotic Art Festival is now just a memory. The organizers did an absolutely incredible job – this was by far the best SEAF ever. The huge space at the Seattle Center really worked well, the art, performers, and DJ’s were all top notch, and the midnight to 4AM after parties on Friday and Saturday rocked the house.

Our La Figa installation was also a smashing success – people really seemed to love it. We had eight large framed prints on our wall space, and Tiberio created new works of food and body art on over a dozen models over three nights.

I have posted three albums of images from the festival:

The La Figa Installation (53 images)
People and Art (46 images)
Performers (37 images)

And here are a few favorites…

98% Crap

pmattf — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:41:44 +0000

I went to the Japanese Garden at the University of Washington Arboretum last week to shoot some macro while everything is blossoming. I believe I set a new personal record – out of 315 frames that I shot, I ended up deleting 310, for a success rate of just 2%.

There are two reasons for this. First, I have been going to the same spot to shoot the same blossoming plants for several seasons now, so it is getting harder to come up with shots that I have not done already. But mainly, I forgot one of the key principles of outdoor macro photography – don’t do it if it is at all breezy out. Shooting a flower through a macro lens in a breeze is like trying to shoot in a hurricane – the movements are vastly magnified, so it is much harder than normal to get sharp shots (which is already hard enough).

But without further ado, here are the five shots from the day that I kept….

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JUST Bottles

pmattf — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:40:16 +0000

Here are some shots I did for the premiere issue of JUST CAUSE Magazine (which will be launching extremely soon – stay tuned for more on that). These wine bottles were for filler for a story about recycling.

Clear glass is tricky to shoot well – if you do not do it exactly right the glass either completely dissappears, or becomes covered with unpleasant reflections (I recommend the book “Light: Science and Magic” if you want to learn how to do it). However tinted glass is much easier. Basically you just need to back light it. I.e. have the light shine through the glass rather than bounce off the front.

Click on the images for larger versions…

And we also did some water bottle shots for a story about green shopping…

The Fittest Woman in the Northwest

pmattf — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:16:55 +0000

Here are some photos I shot of my trainer Adriana Medina – owner of Fuerte Fitness – before she won the Women’s Fitness division at the Vancouver Classic bodybuilding competition at the end of March.

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We shot these on location at Fuerte Fitness. Here is my portable studio setup. Black velvet backdrop, and three SB-800 flashes. The umbrellas are actually Photek Softliter Umbrella/Softboxes….