Minnesota North Country

Hope that the photos will speak for themselves. Had a wonderful trip into north country.

Jake & Stacy's Wedding

Just a fantastic day with the Koelln's and the Hill's in the Twin Cities on Saturday. Here is a little video for now. Photos to follow in a bit.

Caption Me Contest Poll #1

Please only vote in one of the two polls below. There was a maximum of 10 answers to each poll. Fortunately we had lots of good entries.

Voting will be open until Monday night. Good luck and thanks for participating. Visit Matt Addington Photography Page on Facebook for complete entries!

Online Surveys & Market Research

Online Surveys & Market Research

Is Twitter Taking Over the World

I have been on Twitter for a couple years now but I am becoming increasingly more amazed each day to the level that it's filtering into every corner of our society. I signed up and didn't really tweet much, just kinda had an account and lurked around a bit. I mean, my gosh I am following the leader of the free world! Facebook status updates kept me up to speed with those around me and I left it at that.

I keep trying to have the foresight to see what it's role will be in another six months/1 year/5 years. At some point it/they will have to try and mesh it with capitalism, huh?? It just can't stay free for this long! No doubt it's been a great tool for those in business and industry. The media is absolutely gorging on it as well.

Anyway, how many of you are actively using it? What for? What do you enjoy about it? I am just curious. I have thrown it out to my Facebook friends and fans on Matt Addington Photography as well...

Facebook AND/OR Twitter...Tweet me and let me know:

Playing on the Floor

It's really been a great couple days at home with Cameron. We've had fun playing and I seem to have been laying on the floor a lot!! Amidst this, I have gotten a lot of work done too. I had (have) a lot of catching up to do, but am getting there.

I found some really, really interesting plugins to simplify and streamline my workflow IMMENSELY. After a session, besides processing photos, I do a lot to try and share that recent work. The workflow would be something like this:

1. import files into Lightroom (LR),
2. flag some quick picks,
3. process those photos,
4. (LR) export them for blog,
5. upload/blog photos,
6. (LR) export photos for Facebook,
7. upload/tag on profile page,
8. upload/tag on Facebook Page,
9. (LR) export photos for Flickr,
10. upload to Flickr,
11. add photos to groups in Flickr,
12. then ultimately revisit the entire shoot in Lightroom and start processing and fine tuning all the photos and upload low res files to my proof galleries. Needless to say, I was spending a lot of time to share a small sampling of photos after each shoot.
    

I knew there had to be a better, more efficient way of doing all this and tonight I found it. I have used some plugins for Lightroom developed by Timothy Armes called the Mogrify plugins. These have been immensely helpful in my exporting functions allowing me to resize, watermark, batch process very easily. I added plugins tonight that will in the same function export those files to Flickr, Facebook and my blog ALL WITHIN LIGHTROOM. Much thanks to Jeffrey Friedl who is another amazing code writer on stuff like this. I can actually make galleries, add to groups, and write blog entries right in Lightroom. It's going to be such a timesaver for me.

So ultimately I can lay on the floor more with Cameron!

I also did a little research on where are this photo sharing/promotion is going. I never really know if people are reading my blog, but I can see that it's being viewed in several countries. Pretty cool to get your info, photos and thoughts out there beyond your own little world. I also found some great news from my Facebook Page recently. The numbers of fans has kind of exploded in recent weeks and I now have fans in 14 countries!! I also have an ad running that was shown on almost 65,000 Facebook pages just this week.

Thanks for stopping by, viewing work, reading, and commenting. It makes all the effort worthwhile for me. Drop me a comment here sometime to say hello.
I hope you enjoy the experience.

Avery's 3 Month Session

Baby Avery made the trip out today and was just a little angel. She is really a doll. We are going to do four sessions this first year for her. It will be great to see her grow up through these
photos.

Not Often Enough...

Did Avery's 3 month photos this afternoon and then Cameron asked if he could climb up and get his photo taken. Can't believe that he asked, but I wish I did this more often. He's a little character and made lots of funny faces and poses, but these were a couple of the best good ones.

CAPTION ME Contest #1

CAPTION ME CONTEST #1 - Give a caption for this photo!
Winner receives a $10 iTunes gift card.

Simply leave your entry in the comments - at the end of the week, you'll have the opportunity to vote on the captions to decide the winner.

This is also being run on my Facebook page. You can check out some other comments there too!!

Christine & Travis' Wedding

Had a super time with Christine, Travis, their families and friends at the Embassy Suites in Bloomington, MN on Friday. It was a small, private ceremony in the courtyard which was beautiful. Travis saw Christine for the first time as she rode down the glass elevator with her dad. Festivities moved into the ballroom however and it was far from "small and private"!!

My best to you two as you begin your journey together. Enjoy San Fran and stayed tuned here for some more photos to follow. I just wanted to get a couple out there!

Brittany & Paul's Wedding

So, so, so many great photos from this wonderful day with Paul and Brittany. It was on Summit Avenue in St. Paul at an old mansion. Great friends and family got together to celebrate this wonderful day. It was my pleasure to be a part of it.

Nansen Studio #1

Got great news from Pat and Beverly Watson on Friday...we got the "go ahead" with the remodel of the Nansen Creamery into my studio/gallery!!!

I have been thinking/dreaming/praying about this since last spring and it seems as though some of those are coming to fruition now. There is a lot of work ahead, but it's going to be fun and really worthwhile to have a tangible place for Matt Addington Photography to call home. This is a photo that I took last spring. The building has served many functions in it's long history. Besides being a cheese factory, it's been a general store, dance hall and post office. A long history that I look forward to being a part with my work.

You can visit an old post from back this spring when I added some photos on the inside of the place too.

Trust me, you'll see more of this process here!

Midwest Dairy Shoot #2

Had a really fun time today with the Olsons near Hutchinson, MN on their century farm. Dr. Laura doubles as a family practice physician in nearby Glencoe but milking cows is the other half of her working life. Her husband Loren shares in those duties. Loren was a huge help today and did a great job of getting those black and white girls to pick their heads up for me!! haha. MDA Intern, Sarah Brown was also along today and was also a big help.

A beautiful farm on a beautiful day with some great new friends.

The Carlson Family

Did some photos for the Carlson's up at Deer Lake before we took off. Denny and Sue have been longtime family friends and have always graciously opened their doors to us. I have spent many, many days hunting and fishing with my dad and Denny and some of my greatest childhood memories are up at and around Deer Lake.

It was great to have the whole family there. Gretchen lives in the southeast metro, Angie lives in NYC, Eric and his family recently moved back to Hibbing and Libby and her family live in Brainerd (at the lake for the summer, however).

It was my pleasure to take a little time to capture some special photos for them in the most special place in their hearts...The Hideaway.

Midwest Dairy Shoot #1

Had a quick little shoot with Mark Berning up near St. Michael, Minnesota with his Little Brother, Trevor. Mark and Trevor have known each other for over three years and have done lots of great activities together through the Big Brothers Twin Cities Organization. They were actually just leaving on a camping trip when we did this quick shoot at Mark's farm. Pretty raw photos for now, but we'll dig through them and tweek any changes that need be over the next few days.

Excited to get out to Hutchinson Monday and then East Moline, Illinois and Mapequata, Iowa later in the week.