Training Part III (plus a bonus!)

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I hope you all had a great weekend, and if you're in America, I hope you had a great Memorial Day holiday.

Last week, I released the first two parts of a free three-part photography training series and today I'm releasing the third video in the series. FREE TRAINING PART III

 I've received a lot of great comments via the video page, twitter, Instagram and even instant message and email. One photographer asked me a question about only using natural light. He only uses natural light and wanted to know why I list this as a rookie mistake. I think this question is important for many of us today so I made a short video to explain more.

Always dream big,

Matthew

Training Part II

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On Tuesday, we released the first FREE training video of a 3-part photography training series. At the time of this writing, almost 500 people have watched video # 1 and we hope the video reaches more as the week goes on.

Today, we are releasing training video # 2 and hope to help photographers by sharing some of the mistakes I made at the start of my career. To watch both training sessions you need to sign up for the series. AS soon as you sign up you get instant access to the series.

SIGN UP HERE

Always dream big,

Matthew

FREE photography training today!

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You've probably heard the phrase, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," but today really could be a turning point in your photography.

Today is the first day of a FREE training series designed to help photographer learn more about different aspects of photography. The series consists of three training sessions that will be released over the next ten days.

To join the FREE TRAINING SERIES you must sign up by clicking HERE. Once you sign up you get INSTANT ACCESS to the first training session. There are three training sessions total with the other sessions being released between now and next Tuesday. 

I hope you like the training and if you do please spread the word.

Always dream big!

The 3 books every photographer must read

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I'm just back from teaching at the  Mars School of Photography for a week and it was an awesome experience. I had amazing students and share the joy of photography through a course on portrait lighting. 

At the end of the class, I shared my top three must-read books that every photographer needs to read and this morning, I'm sharing them with you.

1. How To Win Friends And Influence People

2. Selling The Invisible

3. The Alchemist

I also shared a lot about personal projects and spoke about how I made my first and current books come to life. 

1st book: Sepia Dreams

Focus to the finish

It was an intense journey, but it's finally complete. I've been absent from the blog, podcast and other segments of my social presence for the last month in order to complete a big project. 

Working on any large personal or business project requires focus, and at times, you must devote all of your attention to a project in order to complete it. I'm happy to say my seven-month project is now complete and I'll be launching it publicly in the next week. We are still testing to make sure all the bugs are worked out and once the testing phase is done I'll share on all my social media channels. 

Thanks and always dream big!

This week in Vegas

What an insane week this has been. After speaking nine times in three days during the WPPI photo convention, I had to make time to do what I love best and take pictures. I used my Nikon 810 camera with a 35mm lens to create this shot early one morning, then went back to the convention and spoke on the Nikon stage, Profoto stage and for Perfectly Clear. It was great to be around so many photographers and this week's podcast shares why it's important to attend.

Link to podcast: Click here

Oh, by the way, Sunday is the last day to get the new photography lighting course at the pre-sale price. The pre-sale ends Sunday at midnight PST.

Link to pre-orders of Photography Lighting Course CLICK HERE.

It's finally finished!

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I am so happy today! After four months of round-the-clock work filled with many 18+ hour days, we have finally completed the intensive photographic lighting course. This course is a MONSTER course and will teach you more than you could learn in four years of school majoring in photography. The goal of this digital course is simple: Teach everything I know about photographic lighting.

Now that the course is complete, we still have a  little bit of tweaking and prep work to do but the heavy lifting is done!! We hope to launch in the next seven days.

To celebrate, we are putting the course up for the pre-sale at the price $397.00, this price is $100 off the actual price of the course and will never be seen again once the course is live. This price will only be shared with my readers and podcast audience and again It will never be sold lower than the $497  again.

The lighting course is 6 modules long,  and each module has three incredible lessons. This baby is JAM-PACKED with everything you've ever wanted to know about photographic lighting, including how to work with light meters, power packs, light modifiers and much, much more. . To be the first to get your copy order today by going to the following lin: PREORDER

Presidents' Day Special Bonus_Zendaya Edition

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Wow, I can't believe it's been a year since the Future American President book was first released with a foreword by Zendaya. To celebrate, we are releasing the eBook with two amazing bonuses. The first bonus is "5 secrets for taking great pictures of children" and the 2nd bonus, and this one is REALLY special, is a complete behind-the-scenes pdf of the making of Future American President. To make it ever better, it features behind the scenes images of the shoot with Zendaya as well.

The eBook with the bonuses is only available until midnight at the introductory price of $15! After midnight the price will increase to $20, so get your copy today!

Order online at FUTURE AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Oh, and by the way, tonight during the Grammy's Cover Girl will announce their new face who is none other than our amazing ZENDAYA!

Happy Presidents' Day!

Always dream big


Who will be the future president?

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The 2016 Presidential election season has been filled with interesting twists and turns and it will be interesting to see what happens come November. Who will become our 45th President? Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sander, Ted Cruz or one of the other hopefuls? Will ex-New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg jump in the race? 

Last year on Presidents' Day we released the book, Future American President: 50 States * 100 Families * Infinite Dreams, with the goal of inspiring future generations to believe they have endless possibilities. While it's too early for any of the 100 children featured in the book to become president, it isn't too late to inspire every child. This year on Presidents' Day we are releasing the Ebook. To celebrate the release we will have a special bonus. Come join us in celebrating Presidents' Day and as always, dream big!

Valentines, Pretty in Pink and "The data sheet"

One of my assistants was over a while back and I started talking about how I miss having data sheets when he said, "what's a data sheet?"

In the days before digital, we had to record everything on a data sheet. It was a way to keep track of each roll of film and all the exposure data on that job. I love the data sheet because it's much more than just the info on the job, it's a memory of everything about the job along with original polaroids from the day. 

This is the data sheet from the photo shoot with Vanessa Wiliams that became her L'Oreal image. I know call this image, Pretty in Pink, and people ask about this image all the time and how it was made. Funny, what I remember most about this day is playing pool in the studio with Vanessa during our lunch break.

 

Oh, by the way, if you haven't heard this week's podcast of Master Your Lens, check it out! Episode 24 is very interesting. Happy Valentines weekend.

 

Always dream big!

Super Bowl & Aretha's Jeep

Did you happen to see the JEEP commercial during the Super Bowl yesterday? I was proud to have my image of  the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin selected as one of the images, but I wish they used a high res. image.

When they contacted me they mentioned they needed it right away, then seconds later said the version they had was fine, but when I saw the spot yesterday I could tell it would have been much better with the high res. file. 

 

Time to work on making the next iconic images for 2016.

Always dream big!