When I consider making a new portrait, my thoughts usually begin with the environment the subject is within. When the environment has fundamental historical significance, the experience becomes really special… and when it is part of the ancient network of ancestral Pueblo peoples [Anasazi] who incorporated carved dwellings in volcanic cliffs as part of their…
As some of you may have surmised, watery environments are some of my favorite “land”scapes. And part of my endeavor as a photographer is probing the definition of landscape and the nature of place as an ongoing foundation of my work. It’s what most good photographers like doing: recasting the character of places with a…
![Assignment: Asbury Park, NJ [updated]](https://blog.michaelmatsil.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/LS072511_0780.jpg)
A visit last year to the famed Asbury Park, NJ… the “jewel” of the Jersey Shore… Updates to an earlier post. An honest expose of what I saw and who I met….
This is the third installment on this blog of what is in danger of becoming a series, or dare I say a “project”. Living in proximity to awesome amounts of nature can do that to you. Parts 1 & 2 examined scale and spatial sensation. In part 3, I explore density in terms of the patterns,…
I’ve always considered thoughtfully designed furniture as the smallest scale of architectural expression. If you think about it, it has everything that any building or interior has; concept, material, method, structure, program. And…. the really good stuff, knits it all together to fully realize Vitruvius’s concept of “firmness, commodity and delight” in architecture. And speaking of the…
Recently I did a couple of sessions for my friends at my Yoga alma-mater, Yoga District, in Washington, DC. No dramatic and Gumby-esque poses here. Just a couple of my favorite teachers in the studio, and in repose. As an environmental portrait photographer… that’s just the way I like it: the integrity of the simple…
As noted in an earlier post, I love being on ships. Mind you, I wouldn’t call myself a sailor, navigator or yachtsman. The kind of ships I like are the kind where you call yourself a passenger and put on black tie for cocktails and dinner. I’ve taken a couple of ‘laps’ around the Caribbean,…