MATTHEW TURLEY

Jet-Lag Office Day

Matthew Turley — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:01:42 +0000

Phew! Just got back last night from a commercial shoot in France & Switzerland (as well as spending a couple weeks of personal time in Norway, Paris, Andermatt, & Como), which was just the first of three stages on as many continents. I fly out again Monday morning for stage 2 in Oregon, then stage 3 in Australia after that, which makes this really more of a 4-day layover…

Anyway, a lot needs to get done today and things in the office are a bit crazy, but I have a few minutes while the hard-drives are humming away; so I thought I’d start a short journal of my day and see where it goes. Menial stuff for sure but hopefully I can make some of it worth your while:

10:45p arrived in SLC
11p completely crash after traveling for nearly 24 hours

4am wide awake from jet-lag (GMT+2 -> GMT -6)
4:30 sync MacBookPro documents back to MacPro
5 check facebook, or ‘FNN’ (Friend News Network) as I like to think of it / read up a little on the APE blog & some news / get caught up on emails
6 start backing-up 2TB G-Raid2 road drive. Only 451GB to go…
6:10 shower
6:30 research materials for constructing a location/computer case for my 17″ MBP. Inspiration is a mix of the portable monitor kits I saw the film-crews wheel around while on location for The Home Depot jobs, and a video posted by Chase Jarvis a few years back. I have a traveling iMac kit, but it’s too big & heavy for remote and/or mountain locations, and requires external power. This one will be a lot sleeker & mobile
7:15 notice there’s some very nice cirrus clouds outside, which I like to have for my library of background cloud plates. Load up the car with the H3Dii kit and race down the road to Brighton High where I can get a clean horizon
7:25 shoot a few dozen plates of clouds at three focal lengths
7:45 back in the office / download images / catalogue in Lightroom 3
8 backup progress: 300GB to go. I use a program called Intego-X5 to synchronize my primary A drives with backups B & C. Simple, cheap, and easy to use
8:30 unpack / eat breakfast
9 stop by the post office to pick up the month’s mail. Received 2 Awards of Excellence from Communication Arts for image series appearing in the 2010 Photo Annual! A super lightweight mountaineering harness (the ‘Couloir’) from Black Diamond also arrived. Just the thing for quick trips up to Lone Peak or the Tetons, or ski-rappels next winter
9:15 work on finishing up the expense reports for Europe trip. After spending nearly a month traveling by planes, trains, rental cars, and aerial trams & shooting in 5 countries, I’ve got hundreds of receipts / transactions to account for. Expenses are tallied in Numbers, and then summarized in BlinkBid which handles my billing and basic business financials
10 phone call with producer to go over production details for the Oregon shoot. Location permits secured
11 booked travel for Australia shoot. 35 days ought to be enough. Booked it a bit wide since the shoot dates are still being pinned down, and to have some personal shooting/skiing time afterwards in New Zealand. I do almost all my bookings on Kayak.com which has great dynamic filters and a relatively simple interface

12p 2TB backup done. Run to the bank to swap out hard-drives. All of my images are backed-up in triplicate, with the 2nd & 3rd copies rotating shifts in my safe-deposit box every two weeks or after jobs, just in case my office gets robbed, struck by lightning, or worse. Everything is also backed up in triplicate while on location for jobs, only on smaller 250GB FireLite drives. As at the office, the third drive always stays in a separate room, or with me, in case my hotel room gets sacked while I’m out
12:15 phone discussion with ad agency about changes to next week’s shooting schedule & go over the Australia dates
12:20 call with my producer regarding changes
12:25 call to assistant in Oregon regarding changes
12:30p drive downtown
1 lunch at the Taqueria Lolita on 9th & 3rd with my friend Paul
2 picked up a few things at Pictureline: a Pelican 1550 case for the location kit & a Canon 24mm f/1.4 lens. Although I shoot on a lot of different formats, both film & digital, the Canon L-series primes are hard to beat for speed, sharpness, and reliability in extreme conditions. Both me and my 1DsMk3 were completely and repeatedly drenched by ocean waves during a portion of the shoot in France, but the weatherproofed lenses & body thankfully kept the saltwater out (which is why the H3Dii played the role of backup and hid in the watertight pelican case with the 4×5)
2:50 call to my parents, let them know I’m still alive
3 picked up a few things at REI: new TSA locks for 4×5 case to replace ones damaged in Europe and a better travel pillow (I hope)
3:45 another call with my producer
3:50 post office again to pick up today’s mail, return home
4-7 working in the office on the new location/computer case. Contents will include a 17″ MacBook Pro, 3x FireWire 250GB hard drives, a 6×8″ Wacom Tablet, cords & adaptors, extra battery, and ambient light shields for easy viewing outside. Will post some photos when it’s done
7:15 respond to stock image request
7:30 emails with ad agency & Marianne about licensing additional images from the shoot
7:45 keyword & upload a few new images from Switzerland to my stock site
8:30 off to see Inception for the second time with some friends. Hopefully I can stay awake with a mix of serious jet-lag and Hans Zimmer’s musical ambiance (which I love, love love!)
11p crash again, and hopefully don’t wake up till 6 or so…

Teton Aerials

Matthew Turley — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:56:34 +0000

The only artwork above my office desk is a small print from one of my greatest inpirations, Bradford Washburn, whose accomplishments spanned the fields of photography, mountaineering, cartography, and science (making him an instant hero in my book . However, he is perhaps best known for his richly-toned black & white aerial images from the great mountain ranges of the world – including Alaska and the Alps – which he shot from open airplane doors at high altitude on 8×10 large format equipment. Simply amazing.

Anyway, in the spirit of aerial photography, earlier this week Marie and I flew into the Teton Range with my friend Tom. Since I grew up in nearby Idaho Falls, and have spent a great deal of time climbing and exploring these peaks, seeing it all from altitude and bathed in beautiful evening light made the experience heavenly. Here’s some of what we saw:

Cathedral Group from the northeast

Enclosure, Grand Teton and Mount Owen from the south

Enclosure and the Grand Teton from the south. Middle Teton & Teewinot are dwarfed to the right.

Mount Owen and Grand, Middle and South Tetons from the north

Teewinot, Owen, and the Grand Teton from above Mount Moran

Mount Owen, the Grand Teton and Enclosure from the north.

North face and profile of north ridge of the Grand Teton. Table Mountain to the right

Upper Exum ridge, Ford couloir, and upper east face of the Grand Teton

SUBARU TEST

Matthew Turley — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:55:27 +0000

Went up the canyon to Alta on Saturday for a small test shoot with my Subaru ‘prop’ (just one of its many talents when it comes to the IRS). It was going to be the first of a series, but I think the concept is headed back to the drawing board for now since I’m not in love yet…

Shot day for night with 4×5 film and composited in post with some digital elements (see the raw film scan below). No retouching footage this time around, my machine was taxed to the max this morning

Communication Arts: Fresh

Matthew Turley — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:19:57 +0000

Last spring I was pleased to be featured on the CA website, here. Now, a year later, I am once again delighted to have been selected as their Fresh pick in the current issue of Communication Arts!

‘

Stock Site

Matthew Turley — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:09:23 +0000

After a year in the making, my new stock photography website is up and running, allowing creatives to search for images from my personal collections of travel, landscape, portrait, and adventure stock imagery, and create lightboxes of potential images for their layouts and campaigns.

Please take a look!

http://matthewturleystock.com

retouching clips

Matthew Turley — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:00:48 +0000

My father is an ophthalmologist, so naturally my childhood was spent watching cataract surgery videos with dad (accounting for probably half of the movies I had ever seen before I turned 20). I guess the basic idea was that there’s something to be learned by watching a huge, unblinking eyeball on the screen get poked around by various instruments. I actually thought they were pretty fascinating to watch, which nearly got me suckered into a medical career later on. My mom, on the other hand, had no interest whatsoever. She liked seeing eyeballs in the scale and context God intended.

Some will no doubt feel similarly about watching these retouching clips from a few recent personal images, although luckily they’ve been sped up x10 (an advantage I rarely enjoyed with dad). Mostly just color-tuning for now, but I’ll try to post a few more with significant compositing when I come to it.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Example 4:

And, for those who can’t see the films inline, here are the links:

http://www.matthewturley.com/galleries/movies/100213/100213_retouch_b.mov

http://www.matthewturley.com/galleries/movies/100213/100213_retouch.mov

http://www.matthewturley.com/galleries/movies/100212/100212_retouch.mov

http://www.matthewturley.com/galleries/movies/100212/100212_retouch_b.mov

picnics on preikestolen

Matthew Turley — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:57:43 +0000

Norway doesn’t have a lot of flat terrain, so people have to travel for hundreds or even thousands of miles to visit the rare exception and have a picnic, even if that spot is as small and exposed as Preikestolen, located in Lysefjorden (near Stavanger). With sheer 2,000′ drops to the fjord on three sides you definitely want to keep an eye on the kids.

My personal favorite. This dude's pose was awesome

Nordic New Year

Matthew Turley — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:37:15 +0000

Went for a ski down to the fjord on New Years Eve with my Nordic muse outside her home on the island of Jeløy. It was a refreshing change in pace from the sort of skiing I’ve become accustomed to here in Utah, where performance, adrenaline, and technology reign supreme over wooden skis, wool sweaters, and simple pleasures.

To be sure, Norway today has one of the most sophisticated ski teams in the world, rumored to spend more on just their nordic wax R&D than the entire US Olympic ski team combined. However, strong vestiges remain from an era when skiing was simply the most efficient way to get around during the dark half of the year (see exhibit A).

Exhibit A: Knud Bergslien's 1869 'Rescue of Haakon Haakonsson'

the Nikonians

Matthew Turley — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:24:17 +0000

These photographers called themselves the Nikonians in reference to their collective choice of camera brand. Although my Graflex 4×5 became a brief conversation piece, their considerable brand loyalty was undeterred. Thoroughly courteous, they always offered to step out of my shots – at least until I reassured them that they weren’t interfering. ’Are you sure?’ Yes, I’m sure.

Location: Death Valley

Stryn

Matthew Turley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:54:55 +0000

Cabins in Norway are the real deal. They dot the landscape like tiny shrines to Thoreauvian minimalism – usually without running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, or even road access – and usually seem as relaxed and natural in the landscape as a herd of deer. Nothing like the faux-timber monstrosities that awkwardly overpower our landscapes in the west.

Things to remember for when I build my dream cabin someday…

Photos from one of several 2000km road trips through Scandinavia this summer: