Matt the Geek
a.k.a. Matt Spour has been working as an
assistant photographer for 10 years. In that
time he has honed his skills to a dizzying
level.
' I started out working with foodies shooting on Sinar 10x8 in the studio with Strobe and eventually settled down with one guy for a couple of years still on film with Hasselblad and Mamiya RZ. After that I was with an interiors guy for five years and that's when dig started to get usable.
We were on 120 tranny then clients started wanting dig but the chips were too small for wide angle stuff so we went 'in-house' 120 neg and got an Imacon Flextight to scan and supply on CD. I got really good on Photoshop very quickly having had 4 years to play on it at college previously. We also got a proofing system so I read everything I could get my hands on about CMYK.
After a while MF backs got the Kodak 54 chip which is just about 6x4.5 and our lenses were wide again! The neg and scan was out and a Sinar 54HR on Mamiya 645 was a revelation (I now have the single shot version of the same chip myself) We upgraded the proofing system to a Best Rip workstation and an Epson 7600 which I setup for several papers and then re-setup, base linerized and profiled everything from scratch due to a motherboard failure.
After 5 years I thought it was time to go off on my own, that was 3 years ago.. after a stint regularly freelancing at a National museum shooting in their studio and on location with a Leaf on Hassy 555ELD the work dried up a bit so I went back to freelancing with an old friend which was very regular and meant learning new kit. Bron and the Sinar 23HR on a P3 through an M top kit we were also on a Canon 1D Mk2. During the next year the kit got upgraded to a brand new Hasselblad H2 with a Phase One P30 and a Canon 5D (and then 1Ds Mk3!) 2 new macs and a profiled Epson 4800 for CMYK (people seem to spend a lot of money when I'm around....)
I have had to overcome some of the weirdest tech problems whilst shooting in the studio and on location (from a loch in Scotland to a beach in Cape Town) and we have never had a disaster yet. '
' I started out working with foodies shooting on Sinar 10x8 in the studio with Strobe and eventually settled down with one guy for a couple of years still on film with Hasselblad and Mamiya RZ. After that I was with an interiors guy for five years and that's when dig started to get usable.
We were on 120 tranny then clients started wanting dig but the chips were too small for wide angle stuff so we went 'in-house' 120 neg and got an Imacon Flextight to scan and supply on CD. I got really good on Photoshop very quickly having had 4 years to play on it at college previously. We also got a proofing system so I read everything I could get my hands on about CMYK.
After a while MF backs got the Kodak 54 chip which is just about 6x4.5 and our lenses were wide again! The neg and scan was out and a Sinar 54HR on Mamiya 645 was a revelation (I now have the single shot version of the same chip myself) We upgraded the proofing system to a Best Rip workstation and an Epson 7600 which I setup for several papers and then re-setup, base linerized and profiled everything from scratch due to a motherboard failure.
After 5 years I thought it was time to go off on my own, that was 3 years ago.. after a stint regularly freelancing at a National museum shooting in their studio and on location with a Leaf on Hassy 555ELD the work dried up a bit so I went back to freelancing with an old friend which was very regular and meant learning new kit. Bron and the Sinar 23HR on a P3 through an M top kit we were also on a Canon 1D Mk2. During the next year the kit got upgraded to a brand new Hasselblad H2 with a Phase One P30 and a Canon 5D (and then 1Ds Mk3!) 2 new macs and a profiled Epson 4800 for CMYK (people seem to spend a lot of money when I'm around....)
I have had to overcome some of the weirdest tech problems whilst shooting in the studio and on location (from a loch in Scotland to a beach in Cape Town) and we have never had a disaster yet. '