The Artist  /  Matt Nicolosi

{{ Matt’s Blog }}    {{ The Textures }}

Chances are you are already a fan, but if you haven’t heard of Matt, we’d be honored to introduce you to this amazingly talented, and amazingly humble, Matt Nicolosi. I (Skye) had the opportunity to meet Matt at my Austin Soulographer Workshop in early 2008 and he’s just as inspiring (and just as fun) in person as he is on his blog.  Now, he is offering photographers gorgeous texture overlays and we here at Soul Sistas are thrilled to present to our blog readers an interview with Matt. Enjoy!

Thanks Matt for doing an interview for the Soul Sistas Blog. If there ever was a “Soul Brotha” … you’d be it! What sort of things (etc.) inspire you?

If you saw my dance moves at my wedding, you might be able to call me a lot of things, but I doubt “Soul Brotha” would be one them.

Photographically speaking, I find myself drawn to all things nostalgic, things that have a past to them, things that have been forgotten. There is so much character and soul in those types of things, and hopefully without sounding to esoteric, I like to find the beauty in those every day things.

Also, clients that are willing to do anything inspire me. It’s much more easy for me to be creative when my clients are willing to try something different, and usually those are the images I get excited about most.

Beautiful light inspires me. I’m sure I drive Kylie nuts with my “Oh, man, look at that light” comments when we’re in the car. Even worse is when I give her the puppy dog eyes and ask if we can pull over so I can fire off a quick photo… or 23.

Any story of triumph or tragedy shown with slow motion video and sappy background music inspires me… Seriously, you could show me a guy folding laundry and if you present it with him folding in slow motion, a cinematic background track, and a voice over story of how he folds laundry to raise money for abused puppies looking for new homes, I’m in tears.

I could go on, but I don’t think you intended this interview to be a book, so…

How’s married life treatin’ you? Any advice for those who are about to be married (like, Skye)?

Married life’s been great. There have certainly been some adjustments as we get used to living together and meshing our styles and stuff,

One piece of wedding advice I’ll pass on that was given to me by a friend before our wedding… take time to soak in the day. There’s so much time and effort that goes into planning your wedding, and the irony is the day goes by in a blink. The day of your wedding, take a moment (or a couple moments) with just your spouse and just step back and get away from the people for a few minutes and absorb the atmosphere. Take a look around at all the people that have come to celebrate with you, listen to the sounds and the music, look at the details and décor, remember the smells… this is the biggest celebration you will ever have, and it passes so fast. Take some time to reflect on and relish in the day.

After the big day, marriage is fantastic, but it also comes with some significant transitions and challenges, and it’s incredibly helpful to get plugged in with a community of people that are in the same stage of life as you and your spouse to share those transitions and challenges with. Of course you can do this through existing friends. Kylie and I also did this through church, but there are many ways to connect with others. We meet up with a group of 6 or 7 couples every 2 weeks in someone’s home just to hang out, eat, and talk about what’s going on in our lives. Occasionally the girls or guys will also get together outside of this time, too. Nothing’s off limits. We talk about communication, financial issues, intimacy, faith, every day struggles, etc. The goal is to be truly transparent in order to build authentic relationships with people that you can walk through life with. Having that community of support will be invaluable to Kylie and I and our marriage in the many years ahead.

What are three things you must have with you on every photoshoot (besides your camera)?

Maybe you assume too much… I once forgot my camera on a family shoot that was 30 minutes away.

You asked for 3, but I’m operating within the spirit of the rules here, so I’ll give you 5.

1. My 85mm f/1.4 lens. It’s become my favorite and a bit of a crutch recently with the D3. It gives me tac sharp images with creamy backgrounds and an almost 3D pop in my images when I use it.
2. Extra memory cards and batteries. I’ve run out of the former but not the latter on a shoot when I first started out. Never again.
3. My Photovision 24” Digital Calibration Target. While it results in my images being a little too warm when used for a custom white balance setting in my camera, it without a doubt helps me get better in-camera exposures in tricky lighting situations. Most of the time I can guess what the exposure should be and get close, but I definitely see an improvement when I use the target.
4. An assistant. It makes all the difference in my images from client sessions. I’m terrible at multi-tasking, so the more things I have to think about and do on a session, the les creative my images are.
5. Flexibility and a sense of humor. Inevitably, things don’t always go like I think they will on a shoot. Whether challenges are caused by the weather, the client, the location, the equipment, etc… I’ve got to be able to roll with the punches and quickly adapt without the client knowing I might be freaking out. And the sense of humor just helps put my clients at ease. I’ve become a bit of a specialist in self-deprecating humor, but it helps to get people relaxed.

Listening to any good music these days? Do share.

I’m embarrassed by the lack of breadth in my musical arsenal. I would consider my taste a little eclectic and basically only excludes rap and heavy metal. Growing up in Ohio, you might not guess this, but I was a bit of a new country fanatic, and that’s stuck with me here in Dallas. Currently on the Pandora play list:

Rascal Flatts, Sugarland, Plumb, Amy Winehouse, Addison Road, Jeremy Camp, Carrie Underwood, Edwin McCain, Ray LaMontagne, …

Hey Matt, I love Plumb and Ray LaMontagne … you don’t hear those two mentioned around too often either!

Your next photography-related purchase will be … what?

A Nikon D700 to use as a back-up with the D3. I still have a D200, but I’ve sold off all of the DX format lenses I used to use with it after buying the D3.

We all have bookmarked your fab blog, Matt, but whose blog do you enjoying visiting?

I’m a Google Reader junkie. I’m inspired by a LOT of other photographers (including you), and I try to keep up with most of their blogs through Google Reader. Here’s just a few of my favorites:

Erin Vey (http://www.erinvey.com/bark/) ~ I love dogs and she photographs them beautifully. And her dog Gracie is the best dog I have never met.

Zack Arias (http://www.zarias.com/) ~ Funny, original, and he shares a ton of useful info. Would love to take one of his One Light workshops.

Mark Ridout (http://www.ridoutphoto.com/) ~ Unique style and pretty funny guy. Oh, and he bought my storyboard templates. [grin]

Jeremy Cowart (http://blog.jeremycowart.com/) ~ Rockstar photographer from Nashville. Love his style and his musician/band shoots.

The Image is Found (http://www.theblogisfound.com/) ~ Oh, c’mon, who doesn’t have this blogged bookmarked. Just. Plain. Fun.

Melissa Jill (http://www.melissajill.net/) ~ You won’t find a sweeter girl than Melissa, and she shares openly on her blog a lot of useful info for photographers. I was fortunate enough to 2^nd shoot a wedding with her last year, and she’s the real, genuine deal.

Susan Stripling (http://www.susanstriplingblog.com/) ~ Timeless, modern-classic images.

Deb Schwedhelm (http://www.debsphotographs.com/photoblog/) ~ She writes and photographs from the soul. Beautiful.

Jasmine Star (http://www.jasminestarblog.com/) ~ Simple, clean , crisp images and she’s eloquent and witty with the pen.

The Big Picture (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/) ~ Breath-taking SOOC images from world events.

I could go on and on…

So, you went to Italy and now you are offering photographers these gorgeous textures. Would you mind telling us more about them?

When we were in Italy, it was visually exhausting. There were sooo many incredible sights and things to see. One of the things I found myself noticing most, though, was these amazing surfaces and textures that were everywhere. They were so rich and full of detail. One day in Florence I just started taking photos of random walls, sidewalks, fences, streets, steps, etc… next thing I know, a couple days later I’ve got hundreds of textures staring at me in Lightroom. I started using them to create some fine art images for personal work, and then eventually got the idea to put together a manageable number of my most favorite textures from the trip into a collection I could share with others.

I ended up calling it the “Firenze” (Florence) collection simply because 1) I just thought it was a cool looking word and 2) that’s where it all started. The collection includes 38 hi res JPG textures and a link to a video tutorial showing how I use the textures to create fine art images. I’ve gone in and hand-tweaked some of the textures to add emphasis or to add an effect that adds versatility for some of the things I knew I wanted to do with my images. By layering these textures over an image and changing the colors, blend modes, and opacities - all in a matter of minutes - the number of looks you can achieve it limitless.

We are sure it is so hard to choose, but we want to see one of your favorite images (that you’ve taken) …tell us about it.

This was actually surprisingly easy for me. One of my favorite all-time images is one I took a couple years ago. It’s a photo of a barn from out in the country near Marion, Ohio where I grew up. Looking back on the image now, I couldn’t even tell you what the technical settings were, but I’m sure it was something auto that I just got lucky with, and it’s a little heavy-handed in terms of post-production work, but I love it for mostly sentimental reasons. It’s a photo of a nostalgic icon from my hometown, and it reminds me of my childhood. We didn’t live on a farm, but they were all over the place outside the city. I passed them everyday without thinking twice about them or really even noticing them at the time; they were background noise. But now that I live in a metropolitan city with lots of sprawl, strip malls and concrete pastures, I miss these barns. This photo is a reminder of where I came from… it’s a reminder of “home” and time gone by.