Photography & the Arts

Site's under construction- most of the key parts are here, but check back soon for more!

Photography is my visual art of choice when I'm away from the drawing board. I tend to experiment a lot, manipulating light and colour in unusual ways in the hunt for interesting visual effects.

If you're in or near Kingston, Ontario and are interested in a unique portrait, personal or commercial shoot, I might be the photographer you're looking for. (This section of the site is still under construction, so it might look a bit sparse for now- and please contact me if something's missing or broken.)

If you see something here that would look good on your wall, ask about ordering a print.

Photography: Articles & Ramblings

Canada's New Copyright Law

Submitted by Matthew on

Bill C-11, the end result of half a decade of copyright reform talks, was passed in June and is now in effect.

What does this mean for you, as a Canadian and as an artist?

Fall colours on campus

Submitted by Matthew on

Ivy does wonderful things in the fall.

Twilight portraits

Submitted by Matthew on

No commentary today, just a few shots of the lovely Savannah from a shoot last month. One model, one outfit, two speedlights and plenty of wind. Who says a successful shoot has to be elaborate?

Polarized ivy

Submitted by Matthew on

Queen's likes to think of itself as the Ivy League of the north. We certainly have enough ivy.

Time for a bit of filter play....

What killed this tree?

Submitted by Matthew on

I'm rather mystified as to why this one tree (a conifer, no less) has gone completely orange while its otherwise identical neighbours are healthy and green.

Sun, clouds and math

Submitted by Matthew on

I still can't quite shake the feeling that digital shooting lacks something compared to good old-fashioned film. It's the highlights, I think; film tapers off (but never quite saturates) in bright spots where CCD and CMOS chips just clip at white. The film 'just works' in a way that requires careful tweaking to duplicate in digital.

On the flip side, all this computing power has given us new artistic techniques that were so tedious as to be nearly inconceivable in the old days. High dynamic range (HDR) processing is a great example. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have even thought of trying to squeeze an 18-stop (factor of 260,000) range from shadow to highlight into a single image. Now that it's possible, it looks really cool:

Queen's University engineering frosh week: Water & mud

Submitted by Matthew on

Part of the fun of frosh week is that it's a great big well-planned mess. The crazy is cranked up to 11.

Overkill is the name of the game, such as using an electronic megaphone to address a camera less than a metre away:

Queen's University engineering frosh week: Water & mud

Submitted by Matthew on

Part of the fun of frosh week is that it's a great big well-planned mess. The crazy is cranked up to 11.

Overkill is the name of the game, such as using an electronic megaphone to address a camera less than a metre away:

Queen's University engineering frosh week: Hair & games

Submitted by Matthew on

School's back- well, almost. It's frosh week here on Queen's campus, also known as initiation, freshman or orientation week at other schools. Our engineering department's undergrads are putting on their usual show, in rough accordance with the school's long-standing traditions (although things are slightly more tame than they used to be in the days before senior administration was involved in the planning of festivities).

There's the hair, for starters, "EngCuts" being far beyond anything conceived of by mere mortal hairdressers:

Queen's University engineering frosh week: Hair & games

Submitted by Matthew on

School's back- well, almost. It's frosh week here on Queen's campus, also known as initiation, freshman or orientation week at other schools. Our engineering department's undergrads are putting on their usual show, in rough accordance with the school's long-standing traditions (although things are slightly more tame than they used to be in the days before senior administration was involved in the planning of festivities).

There's the hair, for starters, "EngCuts" being far beyond anything conceived of by mere mortal hairdressers:

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