Matt

The Decisive Moment

2011-06-07T18:39:00.000+01:00

Great Film about Weird Photo Requests

2011-06-07T18:07:00.000+01:00

2011-06-07T18:05:00.002+01:00

The D-6 From Agua Verde to El Walamo

Route D-6 connects El Rosario to Villa Union in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. It passes SW through the small town of Agua Verde, through a salt marsh when it hits the coast and turns abruptly NW for 52 or so dead straight kms then abruptly NE and onto El Walamo and Villa Union. The coastal road passes through coconut plantation and chilli farms and the the sparse traffic is composed of trucks full of chillies and trucks full of itinerant chilli pickers many of whom live in squat shacks outside El Rosario.

Shot using a Canon5D2 in a VW Gol driven by Carol.

2011-05-31T21:03:00.001+01:00

Sobering Truths About Making A Career Out Of Photography

Photographer Laurence Kim takes his MBA and 20 years of business experience to explain how the photography business compares to other career options.

First, the options you may or may not have for building enough wealth to live the American Dream (live a middle class or better lifestyle, send your kids to college and retire at a reasonable age).

1. The Investor – Use money to make money.

2. The Professional – Advanced degrees command high fees.

3. The Corporate Employee – Climb the corporate ladder.

4. The Public Employee – Job security and a retirement.

Finally the photographer.

Zero barriers to entry – A camera and a cheap website then you’re off.

Zero leverage/scalability – Your are trading your time for money. Stock used to provide leverage but that’s dead.

Zero equity-building- What’s Joe Smith Photography worth when you decided to retire. Zero.

Zero benefits – Buy your own health insurance and match your own 401k.

Laurence’s conclusion: “I actually can’t think of a worse business than photography.” And the bottom line: “from a wealth-creation standpoint, photography is a lousy career.” Yikes!

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m different, I’m going to become the next Dan Winters. Sober up for a second and read his post (here). The key here is not just making a living at photography, but a career: enjoy life, raise kids, retire and die happy.

I rarely give in to the devil on my shoulder and write about failure, but I’m feeling the negative energy people are sending me and this post was too honest to pass up. Everyone needs a kick in the pants once in awhile.

Thanks to http://www.aphotoeditor.com/

Then and Now 2

2011-05-31T18:38:00.006+01:00

Remember that woman that Steve McCurry photographed back then, well that's her today.

Call me a cynic but that's one way to milk your fame. What next a picture of her lying in her coffin and then another 10 years down the line when he's dug her up and photographed her rotting corpse?

Here an insight into that great photographer from that great blog duckrabbit

http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2011/04/competition-please-fill-in-the-missing-word/

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/04/29/photographers-hiring-help-new-vs-old-school/

http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2011/04/steve-mccurry-is-not-an-arsehole/

Now and Then

2011-05-31T18:31:00.002+01:00

Law enforcement now in the town of Mazatlán Sinaloa State Mexico where they appear to recruit these battlebots from the planet EVIL. They need to utilise these robots as that seemingly OK looking guy is some sadistic son of a bitch who did nasty things to rival cartel members and innocent member of the public recently.

Law Enforcement THEN from Mazatlán but back in 1914 during the revolution when the normal people were fighting against the corruption of the Mexican government. These guys however look like you usual grandfather, dad and son about to head out on a huntin' expedition. (including the actor Anthony Hopkins seated bottom right)

It seems whatever the era they still did downright nasty things to many of the people who they didn't like.

Taking a Dive Into Online Publishing to Showcase your Photos

2011-05-31T18:04:00.001+01:00

Anyone it seems nowadays can take a dive into online publishing as long as you know QuarkExpress or InDesign and sign into a free account at issuu.com. to where you upload your pdf file and issuu does all the conversions to that flip magazine format. From there you can embed and share it through all the usual suspects.

This online magazine I just uploaded showcases this Mexican city I spend time in when I am doing bugger-all work out of London or South West USA where most of my clients reside. It can also be used to showcase your work but in a slightly more interesting format that may give those overworked designers who give me/us all our work, a break from the usual boring flash based personal website presentation. I dunno, I have never asked them how they feel about it yet. But here you go. However if you are a crappy magazine designer, your presentation may even put them off you for good.

What's This All About Then?

2011-05-20T18:52:00.002+01:00

Here's an example of how you work can sometime appear somewhere else in quite often weird reincarnations. What the fuck is this video all about, from what I think is a showcase for a Japanese video artist using this image I took of Queensboro Bridge New York.

I suppose sometimes we should be flattered to see our work re-used in a surprisingly different ways by artists.

Cutaways of Leica Lenses

2011-05-18T21:18:00.000+01:00

You can buy them on eBay for $995.00

Colourful Insights From Olden Day Press Photographer

2011-05-18T15:53:00.002+01:00

Gerry Souter was a photography student from the Art Institute who came to the work as a press photographer for the Chicago Tribune in 1964. He stayed two years. In that time, he had a view of photojournalism that we will never see again.

What kind of camera equipment did they give you?

They gave us a 4x5, usually a Speed or Crown Graphic. You would get a 135mm Schneider lens for it. It would stop down to f64 or f32. Some of the really old ones had window shade shutter in the back. You got six holders that you would pre-load. You’d have a red filter, for darkening skies. A focusing cloth to put over your head, and set of sticks, adjustable. You could take it up to twelve feet. Forty years old and my old Hi-Boy sticks (tripod) still work.

You also got a Mamiyaflex, medium format. Three lenses. 120 film was the Tribune’s answer to the trend away from 4x5 cameras. The Mamiyaflex had interchangeable lenses. The 80mm was normal. The 65mm was good for everything. The 105mm was good for portraits and copy shots.

You’d grab a couple of boxes of film and put them in your gadget bag. Maybe 20-40 rolls. Usually near you in your car. You always had 10 rolls with you. But it was rare that you would use the whole roll on an assignment. 12 shots on a roll. If you had 3 rolls, you would get a note from the chief photographer, saying, “What are you doing?” Film wastage was a big bugaboo. Everyone was scared you were going to waste film.

On news assignments like fires, they’d send out a team of photographers. One with a 4x5 and about four holders (holding 8 pieces of film)- generally Tri-X. The other guy would be holding the Mamiyaflex 120. The first pictures would be the 4x5s. In lieu of shipping a digital shot back to the picture editor with a laptop, we rubber-banded our two-shot holder with the caption sheet with a five dollar bill and gave it to the a cabby who gave it to the elevator guy in the Tribune lobby (who got another bump on the fin) and up it went to be souped and printed.

What did a typical photojournalist look like back then?

If you see the movie “Front Page”, the photojournalists were all a bunch of clowns, being led by the nose by the reporter shouting “Now K.C.! Shoot!” That was pre-World War II. It was almost like the photographers were second-class citizens. The story was critical. When I came in it was pretty equal between photographer and reporters. The Sun-Times and the Herald American – Steve Lasker, were pushing the quality of photography. Lasker drove this car…with antennas that looked like arrows sticking out of it. With lights flashing, he looked like a circus. But they would let him bolt through police lines. You’d show up and he was leaving with two holders already shot and captioned.

When you were out an assignment, you had a sport coat, suit and tie. You wore overcoats in the winter. You had the inside pockets, with film holders and flash bulbs so you didn’t have to wear a shoulder bag. Your pockets would bulge. Most of the guys in the summertime had a Mamiyaflex and your battery flash, a mallet head, practically welded to the side of the camera. Your box would hang from a peg. You were all dressed up for anything. It might be as socialite wedding or a fire. I went through half-a-dozen sport coats in a year-and-a-half.

You get to your car, and you have a Motorola radio. It was the size of a couch cushion. It would take up the size of your trunk. So you would kiss your trunk goodbye if you brought your radio. You’d get in, say “I’m rolling” and they would tell you directions. But you carried a map with you all the time. You had to know the city.

As you look back, what did you most enjoy?

The things I loved the most – the atmosphere. Everybody knew everybody. I hadn’t seen anybody talk out of the corner of his mouth before. Some of these old guys, who had been around for years, were so good. You couldn’t believe what they produced. You wouldn’t think it from how they talked. “Hey! Dis is the way we done this. If you wanna get da shot…” They would sling their cameras over on the peg. Everything they did had a casual craft to it. It was beautiful. They had a hard-edged newsman patois. I was a fine art photographer and was hired from a weekly newspaper down in Yuma. It did not set me up for this. I was startled by this. I learned you keep your mouth shut. And laugh at the joke, even if you didn’t get it.

You also looked forward to going to Comiskey Park. You’d go over before the game, and you’d go to the Bard’s Room that was for press and VIP’s. It was all the free food and drinks you wanted. Prime beef. Cigars. Booze. They’d spend time there before walking over with their loaded stomachs and blurry eyed and cover the game. It was the most marvellous men’s club.

Any brushes with organized crime?

My favorite comment from that time came when Val Mazzenga and I were covering the arrest of a local head crusher for the mob and he was being paraded at the old Shakespeare Station, the infamous cop shop that was eventually shut down. We were jammed in the hallway outside the booking room with our Speed Graphic boxes all primed (f/11 and focus set at ten feet). Out of the room hustled this moving island of shoulders, big overcoats and fedora hats. Val hoisted up his Mamiyaflex. Steve Lasker and I had our 4x5s with the slides out and this hulk stops in front of Mazzenga. He reaches up and pops the Press #25 flashbulb from Val's gun and gurgles, "I could have you killed." The freight train of hoods chugged on past. It was a real Jimmy Breslin moment. We didn't have too many of those.

What was the photography department like back then?

The press photographer’s lounge at the Tribune was a great hangout; it looked like something from the dark ages. I brought my Dad back and he thought it was an old movie. A gut-sprung leather spring couch, coffee table and a couple chairs around the room. On one end was a dark hall and printing rooms; on the other end were the rooms for film developing. There was always dampness in air from the developing. Inside guys were running back and forth with white shirts, ties and rubber aprons. Their shirts would have crispy brown pin-holes in them from the acid. You could do your own printing if you wanted, if nothing was going on, but you’d have to get permission. All the inside guys, the pros did the printing.

The ashtray alone in the photo department was the size of a garbage can lid. It was always filled with wet, damp, and dry cigar roaches - juicy cigar roaches from chewing on them. They were dry depending on how long they had sat there. No one ever thought about it. It was so wretched.

What did you most remember about daily life as a press photographer?

How close the photographers were, despite the personalities. If you saw someone who was out of flash bulbs, you’d give them some of yours. If you had a great spot and someone showed up late, you’d let him have a shot. What really mattered back then was getting anything on film at all. Everything was working against you, that in order to get a good shot on film, you really had to work for it. But most of it was action that happened fast. With the twin lens reflex cameras we had, try capturing that action fast, while looking down. You had to compensate for so many variables just to snag an image.

Whatever happened to black fingernails from hydroquinone developer, acetic acid pinholes in your shirtfront and working out reciprocity tables for Kodachrome in your head? Who is left that remembers the recoil of a 4 x 5 inch Graflex firing off -- whipping up its big mirror and the ka-zooop! of the window shade focal plane shutter slapping across the back of the box in front of your film holder?

There was a mystery to photography back then. You were sort of a magician, to be able to get these beautiful shots out of these 4x5 boxes. You’d learn how to make architecture lines straight and turn night into day. The mystery was what elevated your position...It was amazing.

Thanks to Chicago Tribune

Lucky Shot I Guess

2011-05-16T20:28:00.002+01:00

I was drinking coffee in my garden in Mexico and just happened to have a Canon 5D2 and long lens set up to take a picture of a reflection in a window when things kind of went right with light and sun and reflections that made this shot work. And because there was a shadow in the background from a tree it made it what it is.

Heng Feng Tyre Factory Dongying City Shandong China

2011-05-16T05:49:00.002+01:00

The Yellow River flood plain of Shandong Province China is a base for many industrial concerns and tyres is one of them. Probably the tyres from your car or truck or earth mover would have started their lives here and maybe at this factory.

I was sent out there by HSBC bank through an agency in London called Black Sun Plc as part of a global shoot for the 2010 annual report which had to be completed by early this year. ( India, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and the UK were also part of it)

Heng Feng Tyre Factory Dongying City

Flat countryside of the Yellow River flood plain. Perfect for factories and hence contamination

When you work through design agencies like Black Sun as opposed to Ad agencies, the budgets and itineraries are damn tight so I came in the night before via Shanghai did a morning recce shoot which along with introductions and inevitable red tape, lunch, meetings, litres of green tea and beer, meant I was back at the enormous freezing cold communist built marble encrusted hotel late afternoon to upload the images and wait for instructions from London.

10 am light and a tyre appears.

The images found their way via dropbox.com (the one I use, although I have space on an Apple server but the Chinese authorities don't seem to like that one, so it's wise to have a few uploading alternatives when in China) to the agency, then to the client and eventually the chairman had to have a look and approve the style, the dress of the factory workers (really important) and content and then back to me.

He was doing something I am not quite sure what. That's the thing with these shoots, there is no time to find out what the hell happens here. You gotta get in there take hundreds of images and get out.

In between that time I wondered onto the damn near below freezing evening streets of Dongying but the grubby, cold, positively crappy tyre manufacturing city and its hazy atmosphere soon sent me back into my room where the only thing to do was jump into bed, watch martial arts movies and Chinese news channels and drink green tea. I tried a go at the restaurant but the menu and photos of some really strange looking food baffled me till I saw a bar full of Finnish construction workers eating pizzas, drinking what seemed like hundreds of beers piled into pyramids on the table and smoking killer amounts of cigarettes. I ate spaghetti bolognese which was damn good. These guys had been living in the hotel for six months and looked really depressed. This town has bugger all going for it after hours. Do your job and get the hell out.

Nice bit of light coming in. Very lucky and it lasted about half an hour.

Shooting in the dark interior I was working on a Canon 5D2 at 3200asa to 6400 asa. You can see without the sun the interior was lit by hanging lights you would normally find in a kitchen. And being winter, the sun soon disappeared so you had to work damn fast. Virtually sprinting around the factory floor to cover everything followed by up to five minders and an interpreter.

This man pressed buttons and wiped his brow.

This guy pressed buttons and spent much of his time at that angle.

As can be seen from photo no.1 the sun is kind of hidden in a haze of air contamination but it did make the light entering the factory at midday quite dramatic and atmospheric combining with the rubber particles and other crappy stuff to produce rays pouring in highlighting the quite poorly neon lit interior.

This man was pushing this cart of tyres round and round the factory probably for my benefit. His tyres never left his cart thingy.

Inside tyre scraper.

The End. Then they come by ship and onto your truck or whatever.

This was a highly automated factory so there were not many people around and it actually proved quite difficult to find someone to pretend to operate the machinery. Although all they did was press buttons in a kind of monotonous, uninteresting way.

This guy below was the only person who seemed to be actually working. His job was to place a tyre on this spinning type machine and scrape bits off it with a scraper and then send it on its way.

This woman stood there pressing a lot of buttons.

My Chinese hosts insisted on taking me to the same restaurant where, the night before, I swiftly left. But this time I left the choice up to them where they pointed to some fish swimming in a tank, some prawn and some moving cucumber type animal from a tank and headed to the table where the seafood delights soon appeared before us. Haven't a clue what it was but it was good with lots of beer.

The images were uploaded to London by about 4 in the morning. I used Lightroom and a preset I put together which made the RAW files look appealing as low resolution JPEGS. I applied that to all the images and I was out of there early the next day onto Singapore and India.

Take a Refreshing Weekend Up a Mountain.

2011-05-09T19:29:00.003+01:00

Our cameraman took himself off up a mountain this weekend to savour the refreshing, bracing, champagne quality of the air up there. He filmed some of the locals going merrily about their business in a happy and jovial mood as they kept their neighbourhood clean, did their wonderfully fulfilling jobs and sat down every 3 or 4 hours to set up tables overflowing with tasty eating delights and cool frosty sparkling wines and chilly glasses of volcanic water. At the end of the day the men would stop to relax and converse and puff and share and compare high class Cuban cheroots while the women and their sweet kids danced around and sang Julie Andrews songs in soft green pastures. After which they get into their charabancs and donkey carts and pootle gayly down the mountainside back to their delightful alpine A Frame houses surrounded by pretty Eidelweisses and other colourful flowers.

A jolly good day was had by all and they will do it all again the next day and the next till this nice dream becomes a boring, dirty, slog like a route march and the temperature rises to 40 degrees and the humidity goes off the chart and you drink liquid from leftovers in the plastic bottles buried deep in garbage and eat thrown-away oranges and half chewed mangos and suck in lungfuls of dust as trucks go passed every 5 minutes.................

You get the idea by now.

The good news is that you are giving these people a living so we can all feel much better about it.

Hooray for garbage!!!!

© 2011 Matt Mawson

Shot with a Canon 5DMkII 17mm and 70-200mm +/- 40@f22

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai.

2011-05-05T00:41:00.002+01:00

Doing a shoot for a London design company Radley Yeldar outside Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai it was hard not to be drawn inside and just hang around taking pictures of the mass of people using the terminus. It is easy to loose yourself for while till the police catch up and chuck you out with the police mantra as in all public places around the world - "No photo, no photo."

A shaft of sunlight entered the ceiling for about ten minutes and I was lucky enough to be in the right place so sat on the ground and clicked the shutter as these bright coloured saris wafted passed.

Mazatlán Moto Week Procession 30 April 2011

2011-05-02T17:18:00.003+01:00

On this day thousands of motorcyclists ride into Mazatlán Sinaloa Mexico to party, show off their machines, tattoos and riding skills and do all the things guys on big bikes do. On April 30 they do a procession down the 10kms malecón and back making as much noise as possible.

This amateur video was shot on a Canon 5D2 and the music is by Wilco.

Screen captures:

50 Positively Weird 'Ol Timey Photographs

2011-03-24T16:49:00.004Z

Maybe we thought our Great Grandparents were a dry bunch of 'ol coots but these images show they were capable of documenting how weird they could be in this set of unexplained photographs.

It starts off slow, with a stained mattress. But before long there's bear wrestling, toddlers smoking, comic misuse of med-school skeletons, and, well, this guy right here.

The Dump II

2011-03-18T18:46:00.001Z

Work continues on the dump 24 hours. The endless cycle of garbage trucks depositing our crap and the people who stand knee-deep in it ripping open bags to collect the recyclables that have been missed by the garbage truckers who have already been through it once already. Plastics, cans and cardboard.

It's Official... Commercial Photography is again on the Upswing.

2011-03-18T17:29:00.000Z

Weymouth, MA) February 17, 2011 . . . According to a recent InfoTrends survey of over 1,700 professional photographers in the U.S., the pro photo market is starting to recover from the effects of the recession. 2009 marked the first year-over-year decline in the mean number of digital images captured per month by pros since InfoTrends began surveying pros earlier in the decade. However, this number grew substantially in 2010 as pros took on more assignments and more jobs. That’s a positive sign for an increasingly competitive category.

InfoTrends’ industry experts will attest to the fact that pro photographer behavior impacts multiple segments of the digital imaging industry. Hardware OEMs rely on pros to continually invest in cameras, lenses, and related equipment. Pro labs continue to serve as the number one source for pro photo prints, and they look to pros for print revenue. Online service providers that cater exclusively to the pro segment continue to grow in importance as online activity increases each year. Finally, providers of personalized photo products are benefitting from the pro photography business as pros add merchandise to their client offerings. In fact, InfoTrends’ research shows that nearly 60% of pros currently offer this option and another 14% are planning to begin offering these products within the next 12 months.

“Although things are starting to turn around, the pro photo market is not without its challenges. As the economy remains turbulent, photographers are exploring new avenues such as photo merchandise and social networking to build their business. Those that stay on top of these new trends will develop offerings that are the most relevant and sought after by today’s consumers,” states Ed Lee, Group Director of InfoTrends Consumer and Professional Imaging Group.

InfoTrends’ research not only looks at pros’ use of hardware and services, but also at their use of editing, management, and workflow tools. InfoTrends’ research suggests that pros are increasingly turning to tools that manage a wide variety of tasks for them. They use multiple software packages, particularly for editing, but they are coming to rely on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Apeture in particular for ongoing support once they have adopted one of those software packages. While there are significant differences in behavior by type of photographer and OS platform used, InfoTrends expects to see increased use of any solution that allows a pro or even an advanced amateur to focus more on shooting and selling their services.

InfoTrends’ 2010 Professional Photographer survey examines the behaviors of professional photographers in great detail, including the equipment that they own, their photo capture and printing habits, the types of software products that they use, and much more. This report discusses current and future trends in the pro photography market, and offers advice that vendors can leverage to increase their own revenues in a difficult economy.

http://www.infotrends.com/public/Content/Press/2011/02.17.2011.html

Coney Island NYC

2011-03-15T20:34:00.008Z

Another example of a popular German online photo magazine called Augenblicke picking up on a project from the internet and placing you amongst what seems like hundreds of other photographers and their stories onto Augenblicke's site under the title Rostiges Kirmesvergnügen or 'Rusty Carnival Fun'.

I want to know who the hell has the time to plough through all that lot?

But hey we all desire to be noticed and our story told.

"Coney Island NYC" von Matt Mawson

Blatant Self Publicity

2011-03-15T15:57:00.007Z

Don't know much about this South African published magazine but they have got together a story about me and my work after a couple of my projects from New York City caught the attention of many photo blogs and went rapidly through the internet. Amazing that that can happen these days. But just the same you are soon forgotten.

also designtimes.co.za

Jazz-Age Australian Villains

2011-03-12T16:49:00.003Z

Here's a collection of photos from Sydney, Australia's Justice & Police Museum exhibition Crooks. These pictures were taken by Australian police in the 1920s, capturing "individuals they thought were, or were likely to become, professional criminals." They're collected in a high-quality photography book called Crooks Like Us, which non-Australians can also get a pretty good deal on at Amazon. The photos themselves are striking and their subjects run the gamut from properly scary villains to haunted and troubled souls.

To Recycle or not to Recycle......

2011-03-12T15:55:00.003Z

We all recycle our garbage. Well, most of us do and those who don't should start doing so now. If you live in a modern first world country that is.

The City Dump Mazatlán Sinaloa State Mexico

But when we do recycle from source we are taking food out of the mouths of those unfortunate people who live at the very bottom of our society here in Mazatlán. Not those unfortunate people who live and beg on the streets, not even those people who have a drink problem and also live and scrounge on the streets but those people even more unfortunate than anyone can imagine. I suppose they themselves cannot even imagine doing what they do.

They are the Mazatlán citizens who live and work on the city garbage tip collecting second hand food to feed themselves and their families and recycling vast amounts of plastics and tins that we toss in our kitchen garbage bags. The meagre amount they make from recycling is just enough to give them access to a few calories of sustenance.

Many of these men and women live in squatter camps not far from the dump and make this stinking mountain of our household waste their daily workplace. Whole families work here from the elderly to teenagers but because a dump tractor crushed under its metal wheels a young child not so long ago, kids under the age of 6 are barred from helping out and they generally stay down below in the makeshift dwellings waiting for their parents to finish their long day spent deep in shit while they take care of their siblings and that can be quite a responsibility for young kids to do. Responsibility comes at a very young age for these dust dwelling minors.

All Images ©Matt Mawson 2011

Beatles Prepare Their Famous Walk

2011-03-04T04:09:00.000Z

Wish we could get over them though.

I Want to Believe.

2011-03-04T03:40:00.001Z

Something mesmerising about this illustration. Kind of Soviet Futurism or something.

Tip : How To Teach Your Kids To Swim

2011-03-02T20:32:00.001Z

Got kids who don't like water or who are too plain scared to get in the sea? Here's a handy tip - just toss them off the seawall.

©Matt Mawson 2011

Billar el Barrilito, A. Serdan. Mazatlán Mexico

2011-03-02T20:25:00.002Z

All images ©Matt Mawson 2011

Image Mash-Up

2011-03-01T20:24:00.002Z

Agnetha

Checkpoint Charlie 1962

Freddie Mercury

Grace Kelly

Kaboom

Nudist Cult Doctor. That's me.

Add caption

This is it.......

2011-03-01T19:38:00.001Z

Time for some Self Publicity - Interesting Projects

2011-02-28T20:57:00.002Z

http://www.behance.net/mattmawson/frame

Entering Beijing 4.30pm October Sometime

2011-02-23T16:20:00.000Z

If anyone is fortunate enough to go to Beijing be aware that there is a strong likelihood of encountering these conditions of really bad, dirty, smog. And smog can be any dirtier then this is it. Coming in from the airport the traffic at that time becomes heavier as you enter the city centre and at times one can be sitting immobile in the car for half an hour at a time. Desperation can set in and if the wait is long enough, panic comes next as you feel that it is impossible to live while breathing this stuff. That's how I felt the first time. However you can kind of get used to it the subsequent times you visit.

It is a shame because that city is a stunning place to visit - dirty and immaculately clean, ultra-modern and mind-bogglingly ancient, empty and stiflingly crowded, concentrated and yet there are some beautiful open spaces. A city of contrasts with a history to match.

All images ©Matt Mawson 2011

Londoners Expect This Soon

2011-02-23T14:56:00.000Z

Thanks to Tom Blackwell on Flickr

Image Pile-UP

2011-02-16T21:21:00.001Z

Reminds me of my twenties.

Kaboom

Reminds me of youth - at least she's drinking dry sherry not that awful sweet stuff

Reminds me of my teens

Reminds me of yesterday

Bet this photographer was not a paparazzo otherwise he'd be shoving the camera in her face.

Here's a man with problems.

Grace and Her Hasselblad

2011-02-13T03:02:00.000Z

Frank looks suitably impressed with Grace Kelly's Hasselblad. Nice car though.

Interviews with some good photographers

2011-02-08T01:05:00.000Z

Check out America SuburbX for some great interviews and lots of other stuff.

INTERVIEW: "Jem Cohen with Leon Levinstein" (1988)

Leon Levinstein: "Well, it’s sort of a vicarious experience when you photograph. Because you’re always on the outside. They’re having a good time there, maybe a family, or a couple families, having a picnic, eating this fried chicken and potato salad and all that junk. And you’re on the outside, you know, trying to sneak a picture."

INTERVIEW: "Ben Sloat with Larry Sultan" (2008)
LS: "Nostalgia is a big part of who I am. Even though I moved away from the San Fernando Valley when I was 17, I am continuously drawn back there photographically. Even now, I'm photographing in landscapes that are very familiar, where I used to play as a kid — the terrain of scruffy nature that lies between one suburban development and another."

INTERVIEW: "Interview with Shelby Lee Adams" (2010)
"Q: I've read that you spent much of your childhood in Kentucky, but that mountain people weren't held with much regard in your family. Can you tell us about the experience that changed your thinking?
Shelby: I’ve never changed my thinking I’ve always loved my grandparents, family and especially the mountain people I came from..."

INTERVIEW: "Interview with Martin Parr - Boundaries Merely Exist in People’s Minds" (2007)
"Extra: As a documentary photographer, you don’t seem reluctant to get involved in the commercial scene.
Martin Parr: No, not at all, photography is a commercial activity. Even high art photography wants to be commercial, because everyone wants to sell prints..."

INTERVIEW: "Famous Photographers Tell How - Weegee" - Audio Download and Transcript (1958)
"Weegee: "The subject is news photography. This was the most wonderful experience for any man or woman to go through. It's like a modern Aladdin's Lamp, you rub it and, in this case the camera, you push the button and it gives you the things you want..."

Crank Handled Hasselblad

2011-02-06T17:09:00.000Z

"Photography is so easy it's ridiculous. Photography is so difficult..."

2011-02-06T01:07:00.002Z

By Paul Graham

It’s so easy it's ridiculous. It’s so easy that I can’t even begin – I just don’t know where to start. After all, it’s just looking at things. We all do that. It’s simply a way of recording what you see – point the camera at it, and press a button. How hard is that? And what's more, in this digital age, its free - doesn't even cost you the price of film. It’s so simple and basic, it's ridiculous.

©Matt Mawson Beijing

It’s so difficult because it’s everywhere, every place, all the time, even right now. It's the view of this pen in my hand as I write this, it's an image of your hands holding this book, Drift your consciousness up and out of this text and see: it's right there, across the room - there... and there. Then it’s gone. You didn’t photograph it, because you didn’t think it was worth it. And now it’s too late, that moment has evaporated. But another one has arrived, instantly. Now. Because life is flowing through and around us, rushing onwards and onwards, in every direction.

©Matt Mawson Jermyn Street London

But if it's everywhere and all the time, and so easy to make, then what’s of value? which pictures matter? Is it the hard won photograph, knowing, controlled, previsualised? Yes. Or are those contrived, dry and belabored? Sometimes. Is it the offhand snapshot made on a whim. For sure. Or is that just a lucky observation, some random moment caught by chance? Maybe. Is it an intuitive expression of liquid intelligence? Exactly. Or the distillation of years of looking seeing thinking photography. Definitely.

Ok, so how do I make sense of that never ending flow, the fog that covers life here and now. How do I see through that, how do I cross that boundary? Do I walk down the street and make pictures of strangers, do I make a drama-tableaux with my friends, do I only photograph my beloved, my family, myself? Or maybe I should just photograph the land, the rocks and trees – they don't move or complain or push back. The old houses? The new houses? Do I go to a war zone on the other side of the world, or just to the corner store, or not leave my room at all?

Yes and yes and yes. That's the choice you are spoiled for, but just don't let it stop you. Be aware of it, but don't get stuck – relax, it’s everything and everywhere. You will find it, and it will find you, just start, somehow, anyhow, but: start.

©Matt Mawson Lexington Street NYC

Ok, so how do I make sense of that never ending flow, the fog that covers life here and now. How do I see through that, how do I cross that boundary? Do I walk down the street and make pictures of strangers, do I make a drama-tableaux with my friends, do I only photograph my beloved, my family, myself? Or maybe I should just photograph the land, the rocks and trees – they don't move or complain or push back. The old houses? The new houses? Do I go to a war zone on the other side of the world, or just to the corner store, or not leave my room at all?

Yes and yes and yes. That's the choice you are spoiled for, but just don't let it stop you. Be aware of it, but don't get stuck – relax, it’s everything and everywhere. You will find it, and it will find you, just start, somehow, anyhow, but: start.

(The text was written for the Yale MFA photography graduation book - Yale MFA Photography 2009: We Belong Together)

Thanks to American Suburbx

Image Mash - Up

2011-02-05T17:10:00.005Z

Amanda Lepore by David Lachapelle

Chinese breed an army of human gazelles

MM in a flash

Marina Vlady

Cool car.

BB about play in the sea

I don't care who the hell you are marry us or I'll fill you full of holes.

The Maschinenmensch Brigitte Helm takes a breather

Early Marilyn mag cover.

With an attitude like that I'd chuck her out the window too.

Speedy picture taking

Jigger 6 Proof Stuff. Gimme some now.

Call me when you are ready.

Want to look like a real professional?

2011-01-31T20:38:00.002Z

Here's how to tell the difference between a pro and amateur. Better bring a wheelbarrow or strengthen the back.

That’s what separates the pros from the amateurs. Those who can carry, and those who can not.

Thanks to: http://shitphotojournalistslike.tumblr.com/

Scary 50s Stag Movie with great soundtrack

2011-01-31T19:46:00.000Z

Sailor Martin in Peeping Tom's Paradise

This 1950s stag movie, "Sailor Martin in Peeping Tom's Paradise," not only contains less nudity than the average contemporary shampoo commercial, it also has a damned fine soundtrack -- makes you wonder how many great session players ended up on the breadline when dirty movies switched to all-synth drivel.

Bruce Davidson - Street Photographer

2011-01-13T20:28:00.000Z

Bruce Davidson the great street photographer explains what made him take up photography
"Seeing an image appear from nothing in the darkroom."

Isn't this why we all want to be photographers?

2011-01-13T20:17:00.000Z

Lunch break in a worker's canteen during a photoshoot in a Tire Factory in Dongying Shandong China.

2010-12-04T03:00:00.001Z

Chinese hosts at a tire factory in Dongying Shandong province in northern China sure know how make you feel at home. During a break in shooting in a vast tire factory I was taken to lunch in the worker's canteen. The food is grown and raised in the fields adjacent to the factory by company employees who use organic methods. The company bought the land to extend the already large factory but the government thought they were big enough as they were and the managers pragmatically turned the land over to agriculture to supply the workers.

It kind of makes sense as this factory and many others sit in the flood plain of the Yellow River resulting in a constant pall of smog that hangs like fog over many hundreds of square kilometers. The sun glows weakly through the contamination making a feeling of dusk throughout the day.

Here the menu was fried fish, steamed aubergines with mange tout beans, pork stew, boiled fresh picked soft peanuts, fried chicken, stir fried beans with a mind-blowing garlic dip, stir fried beansprouts, thin sliced beef and a chilli sauce and crisp steamed radish hearts and carrots. Lots of green tea and beers drunk out of small wine glasses.

Difficult to get back to work after a feast like that which lasts one and a half hours.

Ché. The Original Print. The One Alberto Kordo Printed Probably in his Cuban dark room

2010-11-18T17:58:00.010Z

I just come out an exhibition at International Centre of Photography at 1133 Avenue of the Americas and 43rd Street New York exhibiting work by photographers who were present during the Cuban revolution of the overthrow of dictator Batista. Among the fine photographs are vintage prints by Alberto Kordo and the famous "Heroic Guerilla" of Ché Guevara. The One he did in his darkroom and others by René Burri, Constantino Arias (the Cuban Weegee), Cartier-Bresson, Raul Corrales, and Bert Glinn. (the best in my book)

The Original Print by Alberto Kordo. Almost revered by people standing in front as though it was the Mona Lisa.

What I wouldn't give to walk away with that under my coat although this one by René Burri comes close. It still has the original sticky corners of a photo album.

Here some more images from the exhibition showing how cool these revolutionaries looked.

Real scraggly bearded Ché

A young Castro from 1961.

Alberto Kordo - Castro hunting with Kruschev.

Castro was the one who started the whole scraggy beard image that his sidekicks continued. That unshaven peasant look. But as these guys were all young and good looking at the same time they drew many young people to their cause. They had me putting up posters of them on my walls when I was a 'revolutionary' student at Rhodes University in apartheid South Africa. He inspired me to sit pillion on a motorbike and throw thunderflashes into police stations at speed and defy the 'no go' rules for whites to enter black townships with my cohorts and have beers and student revolutionary chats with the segregated black people in the dead of night and stagger back pissed not knowing what we talked about. Half baked revolutionaries.

The other famous uncropped image of Ché. (Pictures photographed by me at the exhibition)

Raul Corrales another photographer in the exhibition was one of the only photographers of the world to have a photograph of his become an image in the currency of the country.

Another great image by him of the Cuban revolutionary cavalry proudly cantering down the road.

Constantino Arias was a kind of society photographer in the days leading up to the revolution. He took 'flash and run' pictures of dancers, rich American vacationers at the roulette tables, dancing, drinking and generally having a good time.

An American on vacation in Cuba 1958. Constantino Arias.

Castro once he gained power positively encouraged these photographers to continue and document him and his vainglorious revolutionaries. Here's the one we don't see much off but this man looks the part - Camilo Cienfuegos, Castro"s right hand man in the field - wearing a wide brimmed hat, long un-kempt hair, long beard, alonside striking features and carrying a submachine gun.

Camilo Cienfuegos and Castro riding victorious into Havana.
Cienfuegos or One Hundred Fires in translation

A great exhibition and what a time to be a photographer if you were on the side of these charismatic Cuban revolutionaries.

Life Magazines on tap.

2010-11-12T10:55:00.002Z

Google has a great site if you want to look over a large selection, page by page of classic Life magazines for some iconic photographs and washed-out ads. Be sure to check out the ads for modern cameras, cars and the crinkly-eyed emphysema-ridden Marlboro man who seems to be boldly portrayed everywhere.

Bardot and photographer with Leica M6 hovering

2010-11-12T10:38:00.004Z

Where do you think Kate Moss got her style?

Bardot thanks to Retrogasm

Shoddy cheap journalism health warning stickers........

2010-11-09T12:22:00.004Z

Free newspapers and The Daily Mail are good contenders for these witty warning signs warning of sloppy journalism. Print some for yourself this PDF template.

Thanks to Newscrud

Lab photography doesn't have to be boring.

2010-11-09T11:38:00.000Z

Life Magazine can always be relied on to come up with some good stuff

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/51541/life-in-the-laboratory

Cool Viral Vids Number 2.

2010-11-09T11:12:00.002Z

Need a Lift?

2010-11-09T11:10:00.000Z

Insane but Skilful Harbour entry!!!

2010-11-09T09:47:00.003Z

Don't these guys look so cool as they pass the cameraperson and enter still water.

Back to The Copper Canyon via New York Times Lens Blog

2010-11-08T10:59:00.001Z

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

Pampered Pooches as Fashion Accessories and Surrogate Children Paraded on The Malecón. Mazatlán Mexico.

2010-11-05T16:12:00.004Z

This lady is surely head over heels in love with her unhappy little dog. Lets hope it only goes as far as infatuation or a motherly love for her 'little baby'.

What the hell is going on these days with Chihuahua owners? We all love our pets dearly but it surely is a unhinged person who elevates their pampered pooch to human level or even a fashion accessory. However this form of dog worship is somewhat preferable to the Chinese treatment of cats and dogs by using them in popular dishes but even this Asian delicacy is under threat from the lovers of animals in those countries that are hoping to criminalise those chefs who prepare pooches for the dinner table. The Chinese have been doing it for thousands of years thinking that dog meat strengthens the blood like rhino horn makes you a demon in the sack. These myths perpetuated by males who use these recipes to combat their mainly sexual inadequaces. Now they have viagra we can only hope they will cease persecuting the African black and white rhinos and maybe someone would suggest iron supplements to strenghten the blood instead of cat and dog.

This bearded man and his dogs are obviously fans of the local football team.

The fresh winter weather in Mazatlán brings out the winter wardrobe of many a pampered Chihuahua type dog. The sheep skin rug housing this poor pooch looks like it weighs more than the dog itself. Probably the reason this smiling woman is carrying the confused looking creature.

This is what dogs love more than anything - meeting and sniffing other dogs and not carried around like four legged substitute humans.

We can count ourselves lucky that we meet these cute little dressed up critters on the malecón and not the rather more violent pit bull and rottweiler fashion accessories that street thugs parade around the barrios.

By the way, do these sartorially elegant dogs ever look happy with their lot. All tend to have a unhappy expression on their faces probably because of the fact they would rather be head down some hole in the ground chasing a rat.

This evil son of a bitch with the devil eyes would soon take a chunk out of your arse given the opportunity

All images © Matt Mawson 2010

Capturing the moment.

2010-11-05T15:05:00.005Z

We know that the well known UK photographer Matt Stuart has immense patience when setting up his street shots. According to an interview he may lay down at street level in a 'zen-like attitude' and wait for a pigeon strolling by to line up its feet with two people behind. He seems to wait for things to happen at a chosen location and is good at capturing serendipitous occurrences using this patience. We mention him as his photographic dry humour and canny marketing sense (his dad was a graphic designer and one of the founders of the well known design London agency The Partners now owned by WPP.) have placed him at the top of the UK's street photographer-best-of list or at any rate most-talked-about list.

Happen by chance or waited for hours? London Bridge.

Photographers working in the streets all have different approaches to capturing the moment.

Cartier-Bresson according to Truman Capote was described as "dancing along the pavement like an agitated dragonfly, three Leicas swinging from straps around his neck, a fourth one hugged to his eye: click-click-click (the camera seems a part of his own body) clicking away with joyous intensity . . . "

The great photographer Leon Levinstein describes his way , "Well, it’s sort of a vicarious experience when you photograph. Because you’re always on the outside. They’re having a good time there, maybe a family, or a couple families, having a picnic, eating this fried chicken and potato salad and all that junk. And you’re on the outside, you know, trying to sneak a picture. You walk around them and around them and look and look and see if for a moment something might happen, and they don’t invite you to sit down and have fried chicken. You’re always on the outside. And then you go somewhere else, but again you’re on the outside. "

One of my favourite no nonsense photographers is Bruce Gilden and he describes what he thinks other people see when he is on the streets "I guess I'd be classified as a street photographer because I work in the street. In fact, if you saw me on the street, you would see a very active, energetic person who probably, while taking a picture, would be jumping at somebody in a certain athletic mode, in a certain dance. All photographers do this, I guess. There could be a film made on the dance of photography, and I think I, in my special way, made a contribution to that."

He goes on "Some are taken unawares, some are surprised. Some didn't know what hit them. And I think most people like to be photographed. But since I work in a spontaneous way, I have to be a little bit sneaky because I don't want them to know that I'm going to take a picture of them. When I use an electronic flash, some people do realize the action of me jumping at them like this with the flash and they might be taken aback, but most don't [react]. Sometimes I work so close with a 28mm lens that they don't realize that I'm taking their picture. Sometimes they think that I'm taking something behind them."

How to get close and noticed when using a 28mm lens.
Hutu Militiamen Dem. Rep. Congo ©Matt Mawson 2010

Gary Winogrand was never keen on intellectualizing or talking mumbo jumbo as he called it:

I saw a photograph that—there's a photograph that had "Kodak" and there's a kid holding a dog—
GW: Yeah.

—and the people kind of wandering in and out. Now, it might be due to my own ignorance or something, but could you give me like a straight answer as to what you're trying to say in that photograph?
GW: I have nothing to say.

Nothing to say? Then why do you print it?
GW: I don't have anything to say in any picture.

Why do you print it if it has no meaning?
GW: With that particular picture—ah, I'm interested in the space and I maybe can learn something about photography. That's what I get from photographs; if I'm lucky, I can learn something.

Then you're trying to reveal something about space?
GW: I'm not revealing anything.

Then what do you think is the purpose of the photograph if you're not revealing anything.
GW: My education.

Then what's the purpose of that? That's what I'm trying to find out.
GW: That's the answer. That's really the answer. . . .

You tell them GW.

Chance capture?
Windy Day Mazatlán Mexico ©Matt Mawson 2010

Weegee interviewed for radio in 1954 said he is only really aware that he has captured something when it get through the developer but he also had the uncanny knack of being somewhere right before something happens i.e. a man crossing a road then getting hit by a truck in front of his eyes or standing around a street one night after he got out of bed for something to do and the whole street blew up as a result of a faulty gas main.

MCBRIDE: I should think when you are taking pictures, you're oblivious. You don't really know what else is going.

WEEGEE: Oh absolutely not. I just look through the wire- finder in my camera and as a matter of fact, when I really see the picture is when I've developed the film. Then I really see what I've have done.

Like Matt Stuart who goes zen-like, Weegee also tends to lose himself in his work:

"I really seem to be in a trance when I am taking the picture because there is so much drama taking place or will take place."

However I really don't think we can mention Matt Stuart in the same breath as these great photographers as in my mind he hasn't really walked the walk. As blues musicians say you cannot really mean it if you haven't suffered it.

The Soviets were doing Фото магазин before Photoshop existed

2010-11-04T11:08:00.005Z

Using magnetic tape a trackerball a drum scanner and far-out electronic music to accompany this masterclass. Yeh.

Beijing and Shanghai in a Dream

2010-11-03T10:31:00.011Z

I found wandering through Beijing and Shanghai a dream-like experience. The smog, the size of the cities, the slow moving crowds and the architecture are just so different to anything we experience in Western cities.

Wangfujing Street. Like Oxford Street but wider a with better shops and a damned site cleaner.

Huangpu River Shanghai

Pudong Financial District Shanghai

I dived into the grass to take a picture of the Bird's Nest (see a couple down) and started a trend. Everyone then got into the act and used it as a more interesting backdrop.

Central Business District Beijing.

Pudong District Shanghai

Pudong Shanghai from the breakfast room of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in the Jin Mao Tower.

Ferry terminal of the Huangpu River

The Bund Shanghai

Below an afternoon view from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in the Jin Mao Tower. West Shanghai

All shot on a Hasselblad 503 CW with a CFV digital back

All images © Matt Mawson 2010

Pop Burgers - Best Burgers In New York City from a Londoner's Perspective

2010-11-03T09:39:00.011Z

Ever heard of Pop Burgers in New York City. One just off 5th Avenue near the Apple store and the other in Greewich.

"I graced this place with my roomie Amanda R. on a Saturday night after sweating out my hair at Hiro!!! The mini burgers were the stuff - AR and I ordered a box of two and split them. The burger was definitely the last thing that I ate and thought about before I passed out at home. I may have even eaten the burger in bed!! I know...not really sure! And then I ordered the fries - batterriffic perfection!!! I think they double fry them which makes them more unhealthy (i think) and more good at the same time!!! "

They serve two small burgers in a little box. As the critic said the fries are double fried and no doubt completely unhealthy. Add a beer an that's the way to go. Great music as well. I ate my burgers so fast, shoveling them in they got lodged in a queue going down and nearly killed me.

Imagine an anaconda with a deer halfway down its gullet.

Cracked Glass and Humidity Damage on Hasselblad Sensor CFV

2010-11-01T11:40:00.014Z

A warning to those who take a Hasselblad digital back out of temperate European style climates and go further south for instance Mexico in July.

Top left corner of a test image that shows crack and humidity damage.

This glass covering the sensor on a Hasselblad 503 with CFV digital back cracked under tropical temperatures of 38-40 degrees C. Admittedly I had just spent a couple of hours on an air-conditioned bus and got off into the hot and humid heat of Mexico. (the camera back was in an air-tight plastic zip-loc with some large packets of silica gel). The glass cracked and humidity appeared as you can see top left near the crack. The humidity found its way under the glass cover and almost like acid, etched a mark on the underside.

On returning to London, Hasselblad customer service said "Don't shoot in tropical countries then!" and charged £750 to put it right in Denmark.

Buy Phase One or any of the others instead. They have good customer service. Hasselblad have a crap customer service and treat you the same way. Kind of disappointing after spending over £7 K on a piece of equipment.

I use Canon now and flogged my Hasselblad kit on eBay although it was a bit of a wrench getting rid of the wonderful Zeiss lenses I had been using for years with a Leica M6 and the Hasselblad but in my experience art directors and designers don't give a damn about the quality at pixel level as long as the image is a well composed, dynamic, graphic and creative image that fits the brief. They also prefer that it is A3 at 100 percent from something like a full frame 12mp Canon 5D or 21mp Canon 5D2 for instance. They work in extreme conditions.

Mexicans and Motorbikes

2010-10-31T11:36:00.006Z

Moto Week and the sound of heavy rock and rumbling exhaust pipes has swept through and out of Mazatlán for another year along with its cast of characters and clowns and village idiots and female accessory pillion passengers.

We generally think of motorcycle gangs as being like something out of the movie Mad Max 2; roving leather clad unwashed evil sons of bitches terrorising small towns, gang raping women, chain whipping grannies whilst their equally greasy abused female pillion poseurs look on smiling through rotten teeth. However this gang of thousands that tore up the malecón were pussycats by comparison and would rather crash and burn than knock an old lady or even a diminutive Chihuahua over on a pedestrian crossing.

These participants, equally leather clad and in gangs – Los Halcones, Los Dragones, Los Butres del Desierto, MC Vikings, Murcielagos, Moto Brothers all get together on this day and drink cheerfully together, slapping backs, ruffling kiddies hair all conducted in a spirit of jolly bonhomie.

However who knows what happens after they hit the open roads of Sinaloa? Maybe a truce is established for this one-day of the year and the rest of the time they get back to dealing in drugs and weapons and slaughtering one another? But to our worldly trained eyes we feel that most of these guys are dentists, doctors, mechanics and even maybe Seventh Day Adventists who like posing in leather and pretending to treat their women as goods and chattels sitting uncomfortably with their ass in the air on the seat of a large dangerous rumbling hunk of steel and chrome.

Lovely sweeping lines perfectly matched

I bet this dude has a silver etched pearl handled 45 somewhere on him

Laser etched Victory bikes are the way to go

You cannot be a real Goth without the horns

This guy must surely be a dentist. You ever seen a set of teeth like that.

This is what a biker should look like - hairy, unwashed and unhealthy. Otherwise why bother?

Some sort of chilli beef hash goes well with gallons of beer

Canon 5D2, Canon 5D, fill flash and post prod in Lightroom using a preset

Images ©Matt Mawson 2010

Thunderpants, Fat People and Techie Runners

2010-10-31T10:06:00.004Z

Thanks to the canny eye of illustrator Christian Northeast

How to gut an enormous Red Snapper

2010-10-30T18:35:00.008+01:00

A Red Snapper is a tasty and good looking fish that can grow to a surprisingly large size. Here on the quayside in the Mexican port of Mazatlán a load of really big Snappers are being dealt with very efficiently with a sharp knife and an experienced hand.

Gutted and heading for the hotels

Canon 5D2 and fill flash with post production in Lightroom 3.2 using a preset that adds a brown tone to the shadows and boosts the blacks.

Images ©Matt Mawson 2010

Lying at the feet of bankers.

2010-10-28T10:06:00.019+01:00

Most of us know what it feels like to be sprawled at the feet of bankers and financial city workers staring at their footwear. Well here's some visual references taken in the city of London, Canary Wharf London and Wall Street NYC.

These were shot with a Canon 5D2, 24mm lens and small fill flash. While I was spending the day lying low I noted that the English men could not be arsed to give their shoes a polish whereas those in the US generally had a well buffed shoe.

Lime Street City of London

Canary Wharf London

Wall Street NYC

Fenchurch Avenue City of London

Lime Street London

Canary Wharf London

Crossing Canary Wharf Bridge London

Hotel appears overnight near surf spot

2010-10-27T14:46:00.004+01:00

Yesterday

Today

The pristine beach and popular surf spot in north Mazatlán finds itself with a hotel from the Spanish chain Riu. "Imagine our surprise when we arrived this morning and found this friggin' thing here. We think it must have been lying dormant under the sand waiting for favourable conditions. Then up it came. Lobster red tourists and all."

Like a stranded ocean liner

2010-10-27T14:29:00.003+01:00

Whaaat! Where the hell did that come from?

Hotel Riu Mazatlán Mexico appeared one morning 100 metres from Playa Bruja. We cannot even remember what was there before, nothing we think. This building is just seared on the retina it makes you forget what was there before. There is nothing else like it nearby but soon will be.

Just happy to be there..

2010-10-27T10:17:00.008+01:00

You get up early and get yourself miles to Playa Bruja the sun isn't even up yet and you find waves are non existent. No worries. It is just good to be on the sea.

David Surfs Little Waves off Playa Bruja

2010-10-27T09:41:00.003+01:00

David Surfs Little Waves off Playa Bruja Mazatlán Mexico from Matt Mawson on Vimeo.

This was shot with one of those little DV tape recorders from Canon that were popular a number of years ago. I think that taking your board on a bus to the beach at the end of the bus line is the way to go. If you don't have a car you cannot be that choosey to which surf spot to go to. Playa Bruja in the north where Mazatlán runs out is generally a good place but this was the wrong time of year for consistent waves.

Not a fight mask.

2010-10-26T15:45:00.011+01:00

You take a picture purely for exposure purposes and later download the images and find this cheeky little fellow appeared out of nowhere to get his face frame centre at a Lucha Libre show in downtown Mazatlán Mexico.

Shot on a Hasselblad 503CWD

Marijuana Bonfire Mexico

2010-10-26T15:29:00.002+01:00

That's marijuana being burned in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. I bet those army guys are feeling chilled.

Unsettling Pictures no. 1

2010-10-26T07:15:00.013+01:00

Miss Atomic Test 1954. Kabooom!

You had to be in Las Vegas to appreciate this fellow. I bet he could charm a cup of tea out my Granny.

Novel way to get yourselves down to Pride. Way to go boys.

Kiddyz drive-by terror

Cocktail cigarette.

That's my boy

Nice scene I found coming out of Kew Gardens London

2010-10-25T10:51:00.002+01:00

Hasselblad 503 CWD and 40mm lens.

Weegee's Coney Island on a quiet Sunday afternoon

2010-10-25T09:56:00.003+01:00

Librado Romero/New York Times

'And this is Coney Island on a quiet Sunday afternoon … a crowd of over a million is usual and attracts no attention (I wonder who counts them) … it only costs a nickel to get there from any part of the city, and undressing is permitted on the beach. … Some come to bathe, but others come to watch the girls. A good spot being the boardwalk. … Of the families, some manage to get through the day without losing their children … but the city is prepared and at the Lost Child Shelter the crying kids are kept cooped up behind a barrier of chicken wire ’til their parents call for them … also in this shelter are kept the peddlers who are arrested for peddling on the beach … seeing their merchandise melt, the peddlers give their ice cream to the kids.'

Read his book - Naked City. What else would you call a Weegee book.

Nice image nice car.

2010-10-24T15:05:00.001+01:00

Start of the Rains

2010-10-24T12:28:00.012+01:00

It doesn't rain much in Mazatlán Mexico but when it does it comes down in short heavy thunderous downpours and floods the streets for an hour or two.

In the old part of town forward thinking planners built the pavements from a foot high at the higher end of town to three feet high where the water exits through a big hole in the road covered by a metal grate. This grate can occasionally get blocked with street crap and the water comes in your front door.

Generally, 100 per cent water-proof housings for cameras are expensive - those that one can use to go deep into the sea with but this one used here is kind of mid-way between thunderstorm proof and shallow sea proof. It is a rather cumbersome product out of Ewa-Marine, a German manufactured product. Coming from Germany it is expected to do what it says it does efficiently and it is 100 per cent waterproof but kind of difficult to use unless the camera is put on automatic everything.

So if you want to dunk your camera in water this is a good one to get and once you get used to the restrictions I was wishing for more thunderstorms. You get the chance to mess around in flooded streets and not be thought off as someone to avoid. A camera is a great piece of kit to hide behind if you want to act like a kid or do things out of the ordinary. Who wouldn't want to put on their hand knitted swimming trunks and float on your back in a flooded street?

Here a bus preceeded by its bow wave. Floods don't stop the traffic in Mexico or the speed of it.

Who knows what this man is gonna do with his branch?

Yahel the boy from round the corner.

This guy was reversing his car up the road with an exhaust pipe full of water!

Self propelled right foot surf board.

His bike definitely had a exhaust full of water.

Yahel

Retro Colour Film - Can an iPod app simulate these?

2010-10-23T12:54:00.018+01:00

Geoffe Haney knows how to shoot iPhotography. I don't own an iPhone and probably never will, so maybe these can be created on Lightroom as presets. My favourites are la la Lamour on a beach towel and Marilyn not quite getting round to open her mail - or too lazy to get round to the post office to post it.

Bette Davis looks really cool with green tinted glasses. All she sees are aliens.

Stocking seams drawn on with a Sharpie? Judging by the cheap-skate photo location they probably were. I like the fifties space-age bohr diagram atom headgear.

Marilyn with her fan letters or letters to Santa? Nice reds and hints of purple.

Dorothy Lamour with a hunk in a sarong. Bali ho. Colorized?

A young Dorothy Lamour beams in nice muted colours

The subtle hints here look sooo silky. Lucky Bogey.

Some like it hot. PETA didn't exist when she was around. Anyway they would have been too awestruck to approach her.

Thanks to Retrogasm.

What the hell is going on here?

2010-10-22T22:48:00.003+01:00

Scary picture of something going on in a cemetery.

Thanks to Retrogasm

Where Munkácsi went everyone followed.

2010-10-22T21:55:00.005+01:00

Munkácsi, Nude with Parasol, Harpers Bazaar, July 1935

A surprisingly static image from Munkácsi. He made models move and jump.

Say Cheese

2010-10-22T21:44:00.005+01:00

Looks like that pain in the arse Archie is going to get himself a punch in the kisser. Go on smack him!

Remember Shirley Maclaine?

2010-10-22T21:30:00.000+01:00

.....talking of Weegee earlier..

2010-10-22T17:22:00.004+01:00

Weegee

I mentioned Weegee a couple of posts ago and his all penetrating flash. He has an uncanny ability to be there at the decisive moment. (Maybe because he did use a cb radio tuned to the police wavelength) Here with a gold covered stripper taking a break. The guy just entering is not keen to be there. A nice change from his usual fare of dead villains lying a pool of blood.

Stories from the High Plains

2010-10-22T17:13:00.002+01:00

Dust Bowl Girl

Stories from the high plains. Great images of Californian migrant workers.

Fat Cat Sat Hat

2010-10-22T16:15:00.001+01:00

Best vid on YouTube by far

On taking pictures ring-side at Lucha Libre Ultraviolento Mexico

2010-10-22T09:30:00.027+01:00

As most everyone knows, Lucha Libre or free fight is one of Mexicos most popular sporting pastimes. It is generally a pantomime of large men wearing full face colourful masks (sometimes not) and costumes of super heroes beating the shit out of each other in a ring. A referee partakes but he is more often than not there for show and sometimes he even gets beaten up and tossed into the audience.

Here in Mazatlán Sinaloa Mexico there are often shows that feature local talent and big national stars. The unconditioned, unfit local talent wearing shabby costumes are wheeled on to warm the audience up but after twenty minutes or so they are too knackered to continue knocking each other about and soon pretend to hurt themselves enough to be ceremoniously carried out by stretcher. I think they just cannot be bothered to walk back to the dressing room. Their exits is usually followed by a barrage of missiles and food.

The audience goes mad when the national heroes appear. They are fit, muscle-bound and tough looking men some covered in tats. These guys are well trained and wonderful actors and it doesn't take long till mayhem erupts as they lay into anyone who comes near them using metal chairs and sticks and sometimes strangling someone with the microphone lead snatched from the mc. He is prone to getting beaten up as well if he doesn't exit the stage quick enough.

The emcee gets a taste of the boot.

This purple luchador came in and unprovoked beat up a few fighters ringside, hit the emcee and left.

You lookin' at me punk?

This mad man in a red corset, but don't tell him you think he looks like a girly-man.

Pre-Cortes tats and the white eyes make this luchador a frightening prospect.

Mad luchador urging his frightened opponent to stop hiding in the rafters and come back for some more punishment.

The ring holds no bounds as the mad fucker kicks the Cuban in the head.

The panther sneaks in show off on the ropes.

This is a new form called Luche Libre Ultraviolento where anything goes and blood real and theatrical can be spilled. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference when a fighter is lying motionless on the ringside concrete covered in red stuff.

Slayer got his comeuppance in the form of a metal chair smashed across his ugly face.

Photographing these events can be quite dangerous as often the fight spills out of the ring into the fenced off area round the ring. As fights break out everywhere one must be real careful not to get caught up in them. I went ringside to one show with a Hasselblad 503CWD with a Qflash T5DR and it was a complete waste of time. Not one shot was in focus as you have to keep ducking and diving to avoid the action that often happens down at your feet. Everything was blurred carrying all that kit around but one or two shots did turn out as happy artistic accidents as I maybe photographed a player or the screaming audience whilst I was lying on my back and my finger accidentally pressed the shutter when a fucking big man knocked me virtually senseless.

I went back the next time with my Canon 5D2 againn using the QFlash. The Qflash produces a pleasing wide even light from the round silver reflector almost like a Weegee effect but eventually an official told me to get rid off it as it was blinding the fighters. I placed the small useful Canon Speedlite 270 EX on top and this one gave me remarkably good results although the 2 AA batteries did not last that long with the fast action type picture taking. I think I went through about 4 or 5 pairs till I decided to use available light at about 6400 asa and higher.

Images © Matt Mawson 2010

Belly Wash coffee for ragamuffins to stop blow rubs in China

2010-10-22T09:08:00.006+01:00

On a recent photoshoot in China I came across these interesting public announcements while wandering around Shanghai and Beijing.

Translating Chinese signs into english can produce strange results for instance this sign at the entrance to the Pearl Oriental TV tower in Pudong Shanghai warning ragamuffins and psychotics not to enter beyond this point especially if they smelled of 'effluvium' while carrying 'baleful biology'.

Want your stomach cleaned out? Then here's the answer.

Here's some dos and donts and confusing instructions to take note of when parking your car in the carpark of this sports club in Beijing.

Copper Canyon Chihuahua Mexico

2010-10-15T17:48:00.012+01:00

Copper Canyon - 'The greatest place the world has ever seen'

These original .psd images of the majestic Copper Canyon are 17,000 pixels by 4080. They are three Hasselblad 503CWD 16mp images put together through photoshop CS4 on automatic. Carol, who is blindingly terrified of heights, shuffled along and heroically placed herself and her red parasol on the lip the of 2000 metre drop to get the images below. I used a 200mm lens on the Hasselblad standing way back away from terrifying cliff edge. I am not normally worried about heights but standing near these edges you instantly think about the worst case scenarios of plummeting downwards to be dashed on the rocks below. But if you had ideas about doing yourself in, this incredible place would be the location to do it as you may have the pleasure of at least 10 seconds of admiring the view at speed before your end. Who knows you could also admire it on the way back up as you leave your earthly body and waft upwards on little wings.

The Hotel Divisadero has been placed on the edge with a great view from the bar and the breakfast room. You can even dangle your feet over the edge from the veranda attached to your room as you swig your evening G+T watching the eagles sour down below.

The green bit on Google earth is the Sierra Madre mountain range that extends down Mexico.

El Chepe to Divisadero, Chihuahua. Mexico

2010-10-15T16:53:00.010+01:00

Copper Canyon - Barrancas del Cobre. Rugged or what? That satellite image is a small part of the whole.

El Chepe is a train. El Chepe is unusual for two reasons, one is that trains in Mexico are far and few between and the second is that is runs up into the Sierra Madre mountains of northern central Mexico to Chihuahua city passing the most spectacular gash in the earth anywhere on earth. This canyon known as Copper Canyon or Barrancas del Cobre makes the famous Grand Canyon look like a muddy ditch in comparison.

El Chepe is a very slow moving train passes through the flatlands east of Los Mochis and even slower moves with a very swaying motion up through the mountains generally following river valleys stopping at small stations along the way.

These images were shot with a Hasselblad 503CWD that worked great as you can see but on the way back the glass covering the sensor misted up from entering the cold air conditioned carriages and exiting into the damp heat outside and water droplets found their way onto the sensor itself. That buggered things up and ruined the rest of the shoot in Mexico but luckily we had a Canon 5D in reserve.

On returning to the UK, Hasselblad UK snootily said that you should not take your 503CWD to hot and humid countries and charged me hundreds of pounds to send it away to Denmark for a clean up! So if anyone out there has one of these, do not go to a humid country. Better still buy a Phase One back and put it on your Hasselblad. The upgrade policies are better as well.

Soon the train enters Tarahumara Indian territory and they congregate around the doors selling woven goods and cloth and carvings. These indigenous people have lived for centuries in this part of the world.

Chihuahua is an area notorious for bandits and drug running so consequently a couple of black clad friendly Mexican special forces soldiers accompany the train just in case bandits decide to board at a station and fleece the travellers at gun point.

Fisher Downside Club Bermondsey South East London UK

2010-10-14T17:50:00.009+01:00

This was shot at the Fisher Downside Boxing Club in Bermondsey south east London. The show was amateur boxing between two London south east clubs 3 rounds of 3 minutes so each round was a vicious blur of hyperactive kids boxing. I shot this handheld on a Hasselblad 503CWD with a 16mp digital back. As these only shoot up to 400asa I could only expose for the highlights otherwise the speed would be too slow for this heavy camera setup. I was using a 50mm lens, motordrive and viewfinder making for a camera that virtually weighs the same as a brick. You can see why this camera is not one readily used outside a studio or off a tripod. Saying that I shot with that for over 10 years on location but it was a relief to admit defeat and move down to a Canon 5D2. Pure luxury having auto focus and wide angle lenses and HD video and above all lightness.

The images at pixel level surpass anything that a 35mm full frame sensor can output. But designers and art directors in the design business where I work have no interest in the quality at that level. It is all about graphic composition and creativity. And I say right on. It was a wrench getting rid of the Hasselblad kit as it was with the Leica M6 before that but the ease of use of the Canon 5D2 allows for more time to be spent on composition and less on massaging a painful elbow from carrying the monster and a heavy gitzo tripod dangling from my camera backpack. The new found freedom to take dynamic and often 'shot from the hip' work has altered the style of my work to the extreme - shooting rapidly from street level, through windows up trees under people's legs one handed without looking through the viewfinder auto fill-in flash low light 6400 asa/iso. It's a release.

Canon 5D2 HD video test. The Malecón Mazatlán. Mexico.

2010-10-14T11:33:00.004+01:00

Here's another video using the Canon5D2 again without the use of a steadicam. The daylight shot using 100 asa and the night shots in the barrio on 6400 asa. This is the malecón or ocean promenade that runs alongside Playa Olas Altas (High Wave beach). Mazatlécas walk their dogs and generally hang out in that relaxed Latin way.

The Malecón . Mazatlán Mexico from Matt Mawson on Vimeo.

Hotel Belmar, Olas Altas, Mazatlán Mexico. Canon 5D2 test.

2010-10-14T11:11:00.003+01:00

Here is a short video shot as an experiment in low light at the bar just up the road from our house in Mazatlán. I used a Canon 5d2 handheld at 6400asa/iso and as you can see the amazing clarity and lack of noise. Canon suggest you don't go above 1500 asa. Maybe the fact that this was shot in a dark interior and the shadows masked most of the noise. The use of Steadicam would have made the film more fluid. One of these ought to do the job :

Glidecam 2000 pro and the Steadicam Merlin

2010 Portfolio

2010-04-24T12:46:00.000+01:00

Portfolio April 2010 by Matt Mawson | BOOK INFO

2009-11-30T16:32:00.001Z

Back in Mazatlán Mexico to the rich light that makes the interior of The Belmar Hotel on the malecon look inviting.

2009-11-30T16:29:00.002Z

2009-11-30T16:29:00.001Z

The Hotel Belmar Bar Mazatlán Mexico

2009-11-30T16:27:00.001Z