Happy New Year

Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog! As the New Year starts I will share more info and details as we all make our dreams come true. I will share more of my marketing and promotional secrets along the way. Please make sure to plan your year and include in your yearly calendar all the things you want to accomplish along with a timeline to complete your projects. I will share mine here soon and my progress along the way this year.

This year I have make a calendar just for my clients from Polar Bear trip to Cape Churchill. The calendar is also a marketing tool to remind clients of work throughout the year. For this calendar I only showed images of Polar Bears and not my commissioned work. The idea is to keep my name in front of them and show what we all love, great photography!

One dream of mine for 2010 is to teach and share my talent with people around the world. I am proud to announce my first class of 2010. March 29 - April 2, 2010, I will conduct a photo workshop in Kyoto, Japan together with my friend, Scott Robert Lim. To register please go to http://thejapanexperience.com

Come experience the beauty of Kyoto, Japan during the most beautiful time of the year and improve your photography in ways you're never imagined. I hope to see you all in Kyoto!

Dream bigger in 201o!

P.S. I'm off to shoot three assignments in NYC for January. Two of which are cover shoots with celebrities and the other a beauty assignment with a great client. More details on these after publication!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thank You!

Saying thank you is the most important thing we can do. Very often we forget about the small things like taking the time to show appreciation. This day, think of ways to say thank you to your clients.

As I plan my year I am also preparing my "thank you" gifts for all my clients that got me through this very rough year and also just to friends and family. I don't send gifts out for Christmas to clients because not everyone celebrates Christmas but I do send then out for New Year's once they have received all their other gifts. This year my gift will be with them all year long to remind them about me and how grateful I am for them. From clients to sponsors I want to say thank you. My agents, assistants, editors, art buyers, and everyone who has helped in some way to expand my brand.

Dream Bigger in 2010!

Matthew Jordan Smith

Plan for Success

The world is changing so fast and to keep up we need to be constantly aware of new technology. As I watch my girlfriends son play with the Wii Christmas gift I gave him it reminds me how I need to always be on the cutting edge with my work.

Success doesn't just happen, we have to plan it and then work the plan. Next week before the 1st of the New Year, I will sit down and plan out my strategy for 2010 by making a marketing and promotion calendar. If you're never done this before now is the time to sit down and plan out each month and give yourself goals to hit. It is also very important to not only plan for what you want but a date to have things completed.

Dream bigger in 2010 and make your dreams come true!

Happy Holidays,

Matthew Jordan Smith

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) to all!

Today I will spend the day with family and friends enjoying the joy of Christmas and capturing each precious moment with my pocket camera. The cyber shot G, which is so much fun to use, especially in the panoramic mode. Have fun, give love and enjoy the holiday season.

Blessings to everyone!

Happy Holidays!

Matthew Jordan Smith

Beauty and the Beast

Seasons Greeting!

Another year is winding down and I'm sitting here editing another story to send to clients. Recently I was invited on an incredible trip to Cape Churchill to experience life among Polar Bears. The experience was incredible and the new friendships I made along the way were even more magical. Life become better when we put our daily life experience as artist, photographer and creatives into our work. My trip to Cape Churchill was so profound I had to turn those images into something I could share with the world. I have put together two stories that I will first share here and hopefully in print in magazines around the world.

After returning from photographing Polar Bears I went to work on constructing a concept and started putting the elements together. First I had to call my creative team: My makeup and hair people and speak about my idea. I first shared my idea and then sent images to inspire them. We talked and then I started casting for the models. The first story needed a blonde model and the second needed a model of African decent. Once the pieces were all put together I booked a studio and we went to work.

I was fortunate to have a good friend who is a top New York model coming to town for the holidays to see her family. She would play the role of my Black model and bring my second story, "Polar Opposites" to life. I told her about the story idea and she immediately saw all the possibilities. She is visiting her family in San Francisco but decided to make the eight hour drive to L.A. to be a part of my story. Thank you Lisa!

For my story I used the Sony DSLR-A550 camera because it has new features not available in other camera. One was the battery life which is extended so while shooting in very cold climates I had more life. The camera is also small and lightweight, so even though I had my A900 bodies I didn't mind having another body. One of the features I really like with the A550 is the HDR mode that combines multiple exposures to create one amazing image. A great camera to have when shooting Polar Bears in the snow. Once back in Los Angeles I brought my A550 along to capture the models in studio.

The studio setup was simple and clean. I wanted an all white set so I used four Profoto 7A heads and put them in two Profoto 7A packs. For faster recycle time I could have used four packs but I didn't need the speed on this shoot. The background lights went into white umbrella's and bounced into the white background. The models wore white parka's which were provided by Canada Goose once they got wind of my story idea. :-)

For the main light I had my assistant put up an Octabank but after using it I decided to go with the beauty dish which gave me a crisper, bolder look. When the day was done I rushed home to edit and get to the hard work of putting the story together. The two tools I use for this purpose are Capture One Pro and Adobe Lightroom. I still love having tangible images for editing but time was a factor so I did all editing on the computer this time around.

Now it's off to pitch the story! Wish me luck.

Always Dream Big!

Polar Bears in Cape Churchill

My trip to Cape Churchill was an incredible experience filled with new friends and great moments that I will never forget.

I am not really a nature photographer, but I love photography and ever since I moved to Los Angeles I have enjoyed photographing the beauty of nature. Working in a new environment has broadened my scope of photography and opened my eyes to seeing things in new ways. I always mention the things that enhance our lives when I speak. The people we meet, the places we go and the books we read. Cape Churchill has changed me forever and because of that I must put this experience in a story.

Tomorrow I will photograph the second part of my Polar Bear experience and share the complete story here after publication. For now I want to discuss the Cape Churchill part of my shoot. I was invited to go on this journey by a good friend who loves photography but who is not a photographer by trade. As a matter of fact out of the seven people on the trip only two make their living as photographers, but we all share a passion for photography and travel. There were all types of camera in the group but I took my A900 bodies and the new 550 which has the ability to shoot white on white situations in an amazing manner.

To pack for the Cape Churchill trip I brought the following:

2- Sony A900 bodies

1- Sony A550 body

1- 300 2.8 lens

1- 70-400 lens

1- 24-70 lens

1- tele 2x converter

1- 24-70 lens

1-16-80 lens

1-Window mount bracket with ball head

TONS of extra batteries fully charged (The cold weather drains batteries faster than normal).

I used every lens that I brought and wished I had more available. I was very happy I had so many camera as I used all of them. There were times when I had a body with the 400 and a bear would come close by and I had to grab a shorter lens, so having a body ready to go was critical to capture the shots. My new friends travel together often and have done theses types of trips all over the world so they were better prepared than I. My friends all had "Really Right Stuff" gear and I was very impressed with it so I am adding that to my Christmas list of must have gear. One of the guys on the trip has every Canon lens made and in my 23 years as a photographer I have never seen this, and he doesn't make a living as a photographer but everyone on the trip was very knowledgeable about their hobby. I was very impressed!

This was an extreme trip and once we landed in the Cape and took a helicopter to the vehicles we never touched ground again until the day we left. We spent the entire trip in the tundra vehicle's and the tundra base sleeping vehicle. Polar Bears look sweet and innocent but they are anything but so we had to be cautious at every turn. At one point in the trip our vehicle hit a hidden rock and we lost a tire. To walk outside the vehicle required shotguns and everyone looking out for polar bear. That same night one of the vehicle's went to fill up with water but got stuck in the ice. They couldn't get the vehicle out at night because it was too dangerous, so we were without running water for a night. An amazing fun filled trip all the way around and I can't wait to head out on my next adventure but in the mean time I am hard at work to spin my trip into a photo story. There is so much more to tell about this trip but this blog would turn into a mini book so I have to stop here but stay tuned for more soon.

The last two days I've been casting and tomorrow my crew will come together to shoot a story inspired by a good friend and my trip to Cape Churchill. Thanks Kevin G!

Always dream big and put your life experiences into your images!

More soon!

Happy Holidays,

Matthew Jordan Smith