27 Frames
I am a photographer and director. I live in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, and I moved here from Brooklyn a little over three years ago. I lived in New York for almost 8 years and began my career there, but I was over the cold and the C train. I have a 2 year old son named Oscar. I love Seinfeld and iced coffee.
I used to take pictures for fun like most kids, and grew up documenting my youngest sister – who is 15 years my junior — with point and shoot 35mm cameras and eventually my first 35mm SLR, which I got for my 18th birthday. The only digital cameras out around then took 3.5” floppy disks or were thousands of dollars! I worked in the music industry in college and documented that world pretty extensively. I moved to New York and began working at a high-end photo lab where I learned a lot of the business side of things, and shot small editorial jobs on the side. Eventually things blossomed and I began to do more commercial work and recently I’ve begun directing music videos, which is the most fun ever.
I love shooting film and I love the excitement of getting a roll back, but nowadays I mostly carry around a 35mm camera for daily snapshots. All of my commercial work is digital, but I have honed my post-processing skills to get fantastic results that are on par with film in my eyes. I did get to shoot medium format film a few years ago for the cover of Charles Bradley’s “Victim of Love” record. They recorded it all analog and wanted to keep it that way for the album artwork, which I thought was brilliant.
I think I used a waterproof one a few years ago on vacation. I actually still have a half-finished disposable and I should eventually shoot the rest. I love getting film back that spans several months or years.
We were planning an epic 9-day trip over Christmas and New Years and I figured that would be a great time to snap. We flew from LA to Pennsylvania to visit family and drove from there to western Virginia and Tennessee to visit friends.
I really enjoyed taking the time to consider each shot. With an iPhone it’s just so easy to photograph everything, but with this camera my approach was twofold: I was on the lookout for everyday phenomena that I might have possibly overlooked, and I was very picky about what went into each of my 27 frames. Also I got a speeding ticket in Virginia.
I’m generally good at metering in my head, but I definitely kept forgetting to take into account the low latitude that these cameras have with low light. You can’t spot meter, so you may be exposing for highlights when you don’t intend to. Some of my frames are sadly underexposed, but that’s the nature of a disposable camera—what you do end up with can be amazing or underwhelming. It’s part of the process!
My favorite image is of my son on a swing in Craigsville, Virginia. I love the way these cameras render direct sunlight, turning it bright white. Digital camera sensors don’t render highlights in that really lovely way.
A goofy-footed graphic designer who hails from the first state, Delaware. After attending Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL then graduating from SCAD in Savannah, GA with a BFA in Graphic Design and Illustration, Matt moved to NYC and found work as a freelance designer and art director. In 2006 he moved west to Venice, CA where he co-founded ITAL/C Studio and now resides a bit further north in Oxnard.
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