First of all, I'm 39 years old, I know, I can't really believe it either, I'm still just a big kid though. I live just outside of Minneapolis and have a fairly normal 9-5 job in the city, it's more like 6-5 but who's counting. I mainly do photography as a hobby. I sell prints of my photos and also do some freelance work when the job is right and time permits. It's a true passion and love, and has taken me on many adventures and taught me some valuable lessons. I plan to keep growing as a photographer and hopefully one day I can make a decent living from it. Working for National Geographic would be my dream job!
I actually only started getting serious about photography a couple years ago. I took a couple classes back in high school but about my junior year I got caught up in the party scene and stopped caring about school and sports and became a pretty bad student. This trend continued for many years, I never finished college and just worked odd jobs and "had a good time" on the weekends, like every weekend! I was living to party on the weekends and it ultimately made me pretty depressed and felt I was going nowhere in life. I finally started to clean up my act in my 30's, I was lucky to get a good job and started to focus on taking pictures again, I always loved to take photos.
My life really changed when I finally bought a nice Canon camera, it was the creative outlet I needed! I've told people that photography saved my life which may sound dramatic but I truly believe it gave me a new outlook on life, kept me out of the party scene and has taken me places I never knew existed before photography. I love travelling and seeing new places because I can't wait to chase a sunrise or sunset and capture that moment in a beautiful photograph! I get such a rush from adventure photography, witnessing an amazing landscape after a long hike or kayaking on Lake Superior in the dark to capture the sunrise. I think photography is a journey and I'm definitely on it. I feel like I'm just getting warmed up and this journey will last a lifetime. I can't get enough of it.
Drive and InspirationGrowing! Just growing as a photographer. I think I still have a lot to learn and that's exciting. I don't even think I know all the capabilities my camera has and I'm already thinking about getting another new one. I just think the current Canon I have has its limits, I want a more powerful camera that's better in low light, amongst other things. Night photography has been challenging for me and capturing lightning has been frustrating as well. There is always something to shoot and I'm never bored with my camera in hand! There's still plenty for me to figure out.
I have really good mornings and evenings and come home with great photos that I love, but those times when I don't get what I ultimately want is when I learn the most. Whether it's a bad composition or my settings were off, or I just didn't have the time needed to accomplish what I wanted. When I make mistakes I learn, and I'm definitely my own worst critic.
As much as I love shooting in and around the city, I love going up north or to a new dramatic landscape more. I don't think much beats a calm, quiet, beautiful sunrise over Lake Superior on a crisp spring or fall morning! Or a visit to a National or State Park to see a sunset after a long hike. Yeah, I like nature more than the city. Both come with challenges, finding new perspectives and appealing compositions may be the biggest challenge. However, finding those perspectives and compositions is half the fun, maybe 80% of the fun actually!
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This info was provided by UpNorthtco.com on thier featured artist interveiw of Matt Birkholz