Category Archives: Blog Posts
The Trip of The Year – Bahamas
In May I had the opportunity to visit Harbour Island, Bahamas for nearly 8 days, in order to take video for an upcoming series about photographing weddings. I have been working on cutting together some wedding videos as a thank you for the Bride and Groom, and hopefully within a few short months I can post more of our very extensive photography tutorials.
Years now. YEARS!
Welp. It’s been a while and i’ve done a lot of work. Not everything can be posted online but i will try to link to things as i come across them. In the meantime I have been putting together a playlist of videos i have been involved with on youtube. A lot of what i do doesnt end up on youtube anymore, but some of it does. CHECK IT OUT
Oops… I did it again.
Well. It happened again. I didn’t update for a couple months, and then it became 4 months, and then I had a baby, and now 7 months later I feel compelled to update the ole blog.
In reality, not much has changed, except the way I do everything has changed. At one point during my freelance career I was busy most of the time and when I wasn’t, I caught up on movies or TV, worked on photography projects, and learned to cook new things. But alas, that time has passed. Birdman and Breaking Bad have been replaced by Curious George and Little Einsteins, all photography has been baby centered, and half of my meal prep has been heating up bottles. Yet in the wake of chaos surrounding dad life, I have managed to work on some pretty cool things. Some completed, some still in progress.
Over the next few days, I will try to update some of the neat new things I worked on since my last update. Hopefully you can find something you want to look at or if you are looking to hire, something will inspire you to say, “Yes, that is what I want.”
Here is what I’ve got.
TetherTools Cameo!
Last year I worked with TetherTools and St. Jepan Media, to help create some new video featuring the amazing line of TetherTools products. I tend to visit TT every couple months and see if there is something i can help them with or they can help me with. I have been working with them since my first year or so at Snapfactory.
I chose this out of the many videos that came out of the project because you can see me in the video. I’m in there a few times but i look pretty official at 2:47!
A fun little failure.
During one month, when work was a little light. I decided to do a little experiment and setup a new Youtube page and produce a short fact video everyday. I called it KnowYourStuff, and i mined fact website and public domain images and video clips along with stock music and video that i already owned. The videos were underperforming to my standards and were not very welcome on their respective Reddit forums. (Reddit doesn’t like when you post something you own, but feel free to get +1’s for other peoples work) After three weeks or so i decided to shut down production, and i left it at that. A Fun Little Failure.
Successful Year!
So, it’s now been a year since I have been a freelancer. I was notified a year ago that at the end of Feb. 2014 i would be out of a job and I decided to give Video Production freelancing a go on my own. I got to do a lot of cool things last year, as part of work and just in my life in general. The following posts will probably be some examples of things that i did last year.
I refer to last year as a successful year because as far as freelancing goes, I made enough money to continue to do it. I didn’t quite make as much money as i did while having a salary job, but I did come very close and that’s great considering i worked half the amount that i used to work, maybe even less.
Enjoy the incoming embedded videos as some sort of Reel of Projects.
The 2015 Update!
Ok, just like I said was going to happen, I almost never update this blog. However, I use it as more of a landing page/resume anyway. So now the problem is that I haven’t been adding any of my recent projects. In fact, I haven’t added April or so of last year. So I’m going to try and throw up some new stuff today and then re-ignore my blog for a few months. [Just kidding, but actually maybe not]
For now, here is a pic of me having my face sandblasted of in December on the California side of Yuma.
Woah!
Woah! Months seem to go by so fast. I have a made a few videos that will post on here as soon as I know I have permission to do so. Im been caught in the frenzy of working for myself, planning a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon, and grappling with the small but plentiful distractions that come along with owning your own home. Sprinkler lines break ALL THE TIME when they are 10 years old. I’m running an average repair rate of about 1 per week.
I have a lot of things to catch my approximately zero readers up on, and in July I have had more time. So i will try to post some short blurbs in the coming days. I’ll tell you about my newest camera, and my backpacking gear, or show you some of my recent video projects, or just write up a little blurb about something else entirely.
I know my blog is not super exciting, but I also am just sort of doing this for myself. I will, however, try to post more often. Every four months is just not often enough.
My Guest Post on the Xrite Blog!
In January, I was asked by Xrite to do a guest post about the ColorChecker Passport. In February, I sent them an article, and now in March, they posted it! I was very excited to write it. The truth is, creating the content only took about 15 minutes because using the CCP is so easy. However, I wrote the article three different ways and revised it a few times and then just decided that how I write is what I sound like. So I sent it over. Above all, I just tried to keep it real. No deception, in fact I should say just in case, that I was asked to write the article after my former boss, Photographer Mark Wallace, asked the folks at Xrite to send me a CCP (for free). Writing the article about a product that I love was the least I could do. Finally, without too much more blabbering, here is the article:
Freelancing Advice
How appropriate. On my last day at work, before beginning a period of self-employment, fstoppers posted THIS article with advice for freelancers. The article focuses on helping those who operate outside of normal working conventions to keep structure in their lives. After all, it is really easy to be lazy and spend every day fishing with Ron Livingston when the only thing on your calendar is the date. I’ve been worried that I will have a hard time keeping myself to a schedule, and I found the advice helpful. I could say that I posted this link so that everyone would see it and be inspired but the truth is, I saw it and I was inspired and that is what matters to me right now. I think I am mostly just sharing this because of the incredible timeliness of them having posted it. It was like the universe was saying, “You got this… but just in case, here.” So to anyone reading this I say, “I got this, but just in case you need it too… here.”
Matt Madrid 