Matt Vanecek Photography

Wedding by Ben and Emily

mvanec — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:18:26 +0000

Wow, what a whirlwind trip! In the capital of Country Music, we gathered to help Cousin Ben welcome Emily to the clan. My lovely bride and I could only be there for the ceremony and reception. We got in Saturday early afternoon, and had an early flight back on Sunday morning. We need to plan a longer visit!

Of course, I take pictures. Not as many as I should, but I try. We couldn’t (shouldn’t) take pictures during the ceremony. Probably a restriction by the clergy at the venue or something; I didn’t research too much. But I figured if the Mother of the Groom wasn’t going to take pictures during the ceremony (she wanted to and had a camera!), well, I’M certainly not going to show disrespect! There’s always *after* the ceremony!

Ben and Emily had what appeared to be a very accomplished photographer. He was shooting on a medium format camera; I didn’t quite catch the brand–which really only matters for reasons of status! Anyhow, he was shooting film, but also had a DSLR. This fellow was very quietly going about his business, getting all the formals and what-not. He didn’t seem to have any issues with the other photographers hanging out (mostly just me). The photographer’s assistant (I think) got everybody arranged in the various groupings, and I managed to get some snaps. Trying not to interfere with the photographer, of course. Little lesson here: if you’re at a wedding or other event, where a photographer has been hired to make pictures, do realize that the couple has spent a TON of money on that photographer, and try not to ruin his shots. Even if it means not taking pictures. It’s only respectful.

Ben and Emily were kind enough to look at me for a couple of shots. Really nice of Emily, since she had absolutely NO idea who I was–just some strange guy with a camera.

The reception was pretty spectacular. Oddly, I remember events by the food. For my own wedding, we had simply the BEST barbecue in the WHOLE, WIDE, WORLD! Literally! Well, there was steak to be had at this wedding reception. And let me tell you, that was the single-most tastiest, absolutely tenderest steak I have ever eaten in my life! It just melted in my mouth! I understand the chicken and salmon dishes were delicious, too, but Oh My God that steak! One bite and all thoughts of making a picture of it just disappeared. THAT’S how good it was!

My lovely bride and I were seated pretty close to the table of honor, so I got another “looking at me” shot. Ben is like, “yeah, I’m the luckiest guy in the world!” It was great seeing those two together; even though I had just met Emily, I could tell the couple was quite enamored of each other. I’m really hoping we can spend more time in that part of the country. We don’t get to hang with that part of the family enough at all.

Congratulations, Ben and Emily! Here’s to a joyous, long, and prosperous life together!

Testing Your Skills

mvanec — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:47:38 +0000

My good friend, photographer Roberto Valenzuela teaches that practice doesn’t help–only perfect practices yields results. OK, he’s not really my good friend–I met him once, payed attention in his class, and follow him on Twitter. But he’s a really nice person, and if I had opportunity is definitely somebody with whom I’d want to be good friends. And surely you’ve heard that saying before–perfect practice. It’s also pretty common in the golf world. Practice the right things.

By a strange twist of fate, I wanted to see if something would work as well as I wanted, and Michelle was thinking she wanted some portraits. Happy coincidence! So we set a date and made some pictures.

Since Michelle has really dark hair, I wanted to shoot her against a black background. Normally dark hair/clothing would fade into the background. I was wanted to see how effective a reflector would be in providing some separation from the background. I was just experimenting, really to see if the reflector would provide noticeable separation or not. I think I got some pretty good shots, though. Michelle makes a pretty model, and is patient with me.

I also tried using a backlight–just a small fluorescent light, daylight-balanced. This gave a little better results in some pictures, but was pretty well overcome with the flash I was using. So, I learned a few things through experience about my gear, which often is the best way to learn. I got some pretty nice photographs, too. All in all, it was a useful session for me, and I really appreciate Michelle’s time and participation. Next time, I’ll try a slight different setup, but still using only one light–which, really, was the goal: making great-looking portraits using just one flash.

Jessica, Jim, and Nici

mvanec — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:17 +0000

Jessica Dawn being happy

So, I have this friend. Her name is Jessica Dawn. I personally have not met anybody; nor, honestly, heard of anybody; who has an unkind word to say about Jessica Dawn. She is a warm, kind-hearted, and caring person. My friend has very definite thoughts about what is right for her in life, and she takes much joy in others discovering and living what is right for them in their own lives. Jessica always assumes the best about someone. And her joy in and descriptions of colorful sunrises is the next best thing to actually experiencing the sunrise! It is truly an honor to know and photograph this woman.

Jim, up close and personal

So, I have this *other* friend. His name is Jim. Jim is, coincidentally, married to Jessica. Motorcycles, 4-wheeling on scary precipices, and the occasional video game. Shotgun golf (truly, using shotguns!). I’ve known her-man-Jim almost as long as I’ve known Jessica Dawn. The man is quiet (sometimes) and witty (most times). Jim is handy with his hands on most things mechanical. Possibly on other things, too, but I have no direct knowledge there… He did “help” me change the header on my wife’s Geo Metro once. I say “help”, because I think I mostly just watched. Jim is ever willing to help a friend out in a pinch.

Nici, a fount of wisdom

Jessica Dawn and Jim are a wonderful couple, and they’re each awesome folks all on their own. This awesomeness was made possible, in part, by a mother. Nici is Jessica’s Mom. When I heard she was coming to town, I just knew I HAD to make some photographs of the 3 of them! Nici is a great person. I don’t know her nearly as well as I know her daughter, but I do know she’s got a great sense of humor, and I know daughter loves mother greatly. It’s a heartwarming and inspiring experience to watch those two together. I am SO GLAD Nici came to town and unwittingly gave me opportunity to capture a small part of this family!

Jim and Nici

Jessica and Nici

A Family Portrait

Jennifer

mvanec — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:06:10 +0000

Mother. Wife. Daughter. Business Owner. Dancer. Jennifer.

I had opportunity to create some photographs of Jennifer at her studio. Jennifer is the proprietress of Sole Groove Dance Studio in Flower Mound, TX. Jennifer was a real pleasure to work with. She’s intelligent, has an easy sense of humor, and is pretty laid back.

Jennifer had a couple of costumes that she wanted to have pictures in . We started out with the blue outfit, and worked in a couple of shots with her sword. Then we moved on to an orange outfit that really went very well with her hair color. It was pretty easy to move Jennifer into different poses and positions to emphasize her elegance and that bit of playfulness. It didn’t take her any time at all to pick up on such obscure posing terms as “dancers’ hands.” Which was actually pretty impressive, since not only was that posing term obscure, it was also made up on the spot. By me.

Jennifer’s infectious smile and collaborative spirit helped make this session very fun. With my lovely assistant (AKA my wife!) we were able to get in and set up quickly. After that, we made some wonderful images with Jennifer, and got everything packed up and loaded just in time to see a rather spectacular sunset and lightning show.

I’m truly looking forward to the next opportunity I get to photograph Jennifer!
Take a look at my Portrait portfolio, that includes the above images of Jennifer and some others not shown here.

The Orient Express

mvanec — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:07:56 +0000

Broads and Panties presents The Orient Express! Showing at The Bone in Deep Ellum (Dallas), TX on September 22, 2011. The profits from this show will benefit A to Zed Photography, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Thanks to the wonderful United States healthcare system, she is unable to afford treatment. So, the community has rallied around her. In addition to the excellent services provided by The Bridge Breast Network, Stephanie’s circles rallied to collect funding to help her cover additional costs. I’m sure this help will continue until Stephanie is able to beat this scourge.

Bang Bang Lulu provides a rousing, energetic set of performances. Her enthusiasm and flare was fun to watch. It was hard to continue taking pictures instead of just watching her performance, honestly.

Zamra Dollskin of Dollskin Designs gets hot on stage. Probably because of all that fire she’s playing with! Of course, when one gets hot, clothes may come off! Also a purveyor of latex clothing, Zamra is a woman of many talents.

Pixie O’Kneel is always a popular performer. She shows a more serious side in this performance, but as always, ends with a flare!

Miss Red provides an amusing look at how the body seems to have a mind of its own. Through shimmies, belly rolls, and chest shimmies, her body does its own thing.

Please visit the gallery and see the rest of my pictures from this show. Feel free to leave comments or ratings. Also, please consider donating to The Bridge, and to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Heavy Metal

mvanec — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:14:27 +0000

Modern burlesque is an eclectic mix of tease, humor, and innovation. Sometimes it reaches back to the glory days of vaudeville, perhaps adding a modern cultural spin. Sometimes, it reaches back, but not quite that far. Sometimes, burlesque gets stuck in the head-banging 80s. A time when a sweet child may be caught smoking in the boys’ room. A time when the thorn on a rose might leave a bit of poison on a white snake. A time when hair was long and metal was heavy. This is burlesque, baby, Heavy Metal Unchained-style!

Blaze lit the stage on fire with her energy and beautiful blazing red mane.

Trees hosted this epic show produced by Vivienne Vermuth. I was lucky enough to be able to take pictures of the event from a handy vantage point in a balcony overlooking the stage. It was a very exciting show that brought back teenage memories.

Lady Liquor brought a bit of KISS to the stage with her ever-unpredictable antics.

The luscious Angela Ryan steams up the air as she glides like a White Snake that goes again.

Heavy Metal Unchained was a fun show, and I heard music I hadn’t heard in years, or even a couple of decades. I loved the performances! The show did, however, remind me why I need to carry earplugs in my camera bag. Heavy metal music is LOUD!

Please be sure to check out my entire gallery of Heavy Metal Unchained!

Sirens at Sunrise in June

mvanec — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 04:53:43 +0000

Every once in a while, a few photographers will gather at an agreed-upon location. There may be found some women (and the occasional man) who are willing to get up while Ra yet journeys through the underwold, apply makeup and lashes, and dress up in costumes (or not, as the case may be). On a hot, sticky, humid, partly-cloudy morning in June a group of us held such an outing. My wife, our dear friend Michelle, and the lovely Lisha (who is also a good friend, but that doesn’t sounds as good as “lovely Lisha!” ), consented to be our models for the morning.

I do like some good close-ups! My lovely bride doesn’t have any Steampunk accoutrement, which was the optional theme for today’s shoot. But she does clean up pretty nice, as you can see here. This was taken at the Irving Convention Center shortly after Ra got his chariot moving. There was also a nice cloud cover that softened up the light very nicely.

The lovely Lisha sported some pretty nifty costuming. You can find her out at Scarborough Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie when it’s in season. I love taking pictures of her, because she is so expressive. It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty, either. But the most beautiful person in the world without an expression is just a mannequin. About all you can do with a mannequin is hang clothes on it. So when I get an opportunity to shoot somebody like Lisha, I am quite ecstatic. I know I’ll get some good shots!

Michelle is a bellydance and Romani dance instructor. She also makes hats and hair accessories. Because of her dance and the hair accessories, she does have a nice assortment of costuming. I’ve done a few shoots with Michelle, and those have always been fun. This was no exception. We needed to get some photographs of Michelle in her latest dance costume, which she wore in the annual dance recital for the dance studio she teaches at. I think there are a couple she’ll like!

The ones I think are the best from this shoot are over at 500px.com. The full set of processed images is in my Irving Convention Center set on Flickr. Go take a look, and then leave me a comment here about which ones are your favorites!

A Burlesque Affair

mvanec — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:45:31 +0000

I was presented recently with an opportunity to work with a burlesque class to make some photographs for them. This was a group of lovely ladies who were branching out a little from their normal routines. These days, burlesque is an entertainment art form for women, controlled by women. From strippers to housewives to the occasional boy-lesque, burlesque is a community that brings together people of all backgrounds to celebrate sensuality and poke fun at the issues of the day, or to just have a fun time.

So, I had this opportunity, and I was extremely honored that the class allowed me to come in an perform this service for them. There was a pretty wide range of emotion, from apprehension to excitement. It’s not easy to get down to your bare essentials or less in front of strangers, and sometimes not even in front of the ones you love. A photographer must be respectful and positive at all times–before the shoot, during the shoot, and when processing/displaying the photographs. The ladies were all wonderful to work with and very patient.

The shoot actually turned into more of a boudoir shoot than a burlesque or pin-up shoot. Which I’m quite comfortable with. There would be less photographs I could display in my blog or portfolio, of course. But if the pictures we were able to create together could bring some joy and fun into lives and relationships, I feel I’ve done my job and accomplished something great. If the lady and her significant other are happy with pictures I created with the lady, then I’m satisfied and content with my work. Pictures are meant to be shared, but sometimes, they are only meant to be shared with only one or two other people and not the whole world.

A pin-up, burlesque, or boudoir shoot is always going to involve some makeup, maybe eyelashes and hair styling. For this session, to help with time and cost, we asked the ladies to do their own hair. But we tapped the resources of Vivienne Vermuth to apply her skill and art to all the ladies for make-up. I’ve done a test shoot with the talented Vivienne, and her portfolio of make-up she’s applied is pretty impressive. In person, Vivienne was very professional and skilled. She was prompt and her work exceeded expectations. Be sure to check her out on Facebook to see her portfolio and get her contact information.

The class instructor and a long-time beloved friend Jessica Dawn helped out with posing the ladies. Jessica has a very good eye and was able to get the girls into some nice flattering poses, which I could then tweak if needed. She was very helpful! My lovely bride Angela was my photographer’s assistant and performed such tasks as skillfully positioning a reflector or adjusting the angle of lights here and there. Over all, I felt the evening shoot went very well, although it lasted a bit longer than expected. No matter how quick you snap the shutter button, there’s always lights that need adjusting or poses needing tweaking or hair needing to be swept out of faces. Or chit-chatting that needs doing. For me, this shoot was totally worth the work, and I enjoyed it immensely. Next time, I’ll plan at least an hour per client in front of the camera, though…

A Rising Star

mvanec — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 05:20:02 +0000

Wow, so it’s been a while since I posted a blog update! Much too long. Life has been a bit short on photography and a lot long on work for the last few months. And the work part is not showing signs of getting any shorter any time soon. So I’ve been struggling to find time to make photographs. I have a video project to finish (hopefully this weekend), and another to start and finish. My day job has been keeping my time monopolized to the exclusion of almost everything else. My poor wife has been taking care of household task all on her own, including the classic man’s task of taking out the garbage. The balance between work and life has found the scales tipped entirely in the wrong direction. Aside from contributing to my ongoing ability to pay my mortgage, this unbalance is also encouraging me to find a workflow that allows me to process pictures faster. I am working on finding a way to keep photography in my life, and even expand it. I love making pictures, and I love when I can make portraits that make people feel good about themselves.

I’ve had a couple photo sessions that I’ll blog about later (the clients get first peek, of course!), and when I found out my wife was going to dance in a bellydance hafla, I was like, “Score!” and charged up my camera and flash batteries. Yay! A chance to take pictures! Bellydancers are great to take pictures of because they have great expressiveness. Bellydance is an interactive art form–the dancers perform and give energy to the audience, and the audience whoops and hollers and claps and gives positive energy back to the dancers. It’s not like ballet or jazz dance or other modern dance forms where the audience sits and watches and claps politely at the conclusion. Bellydance can be elegant, or it can be down-home, but either way, the audience should clap to the music and vocalize their appreciation throughout a performance. Aiwa, habibi! Our friend Cathy is a wonderful local Bellydance instructor, and she puts on a hafla (dance party, so to speak) called Star Rise every June. The show takes place at Denton Civic Centre–making most excellent use of facilities we all pay for to present a folkloric dance style a little different from the United States norm. There were also some Tribal Fusion dancers–Tribal Fusion being a cousin to Bellydance, but incorporates a tribal motif and a fusion of different dance styles. Shimmies and pop-locks abound!

The dancer in the picture above is Yeli. Yeli is a very popular dancer in the area, and she also cooks up some mean chocolate treats! Some other dancers were my lovely wife and her troupe (Just Fabulous), Farasha (a Tribal dance instructor) and her class/troupe, and of course Cathy Barton’s class. It was a rousing show with some beautiful, fun dances. Click on the picture above and browse through some moments in time at this hafla!

Until next time, drink, dance, and make merry!

A While Back…

mvanec — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:10:33 +0000

So, a while back, there was a Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School in Denton, TX. The event was held at Banter Cafe. Off in a flash, I carried my camera and a light or two down to the cafe to see what art could be captured. I expected an interesting evening of old-time art, sketching, and picture-making. Boy, was I in for a surprise!

The evening proved to be full of antics and bawdy humor. Art? HA! Julian Pax had shown up to impose his brand of mayhem on the goings-on, and he went out of his way to bend poor Bettie Blood to his nefarious will! Beautiful Bettie tried to escape a time or to, but no surcease was to be found!

What’s a poor lass to do in a situation such as this? Her nemesis was, after all, Julian Pax! In the end, Pax stood triumphant and proud, with poor Bettie at his feet. Julian cast as spell of charm and manliness, and no Bettie could possibly resist! The swooning Ms. Blood knelt in front of Julian in sensual adoration. She fell under the hypnotic wiles of the infamous Julian Pax!

Dear ladies, let this be a lesson. When Julian Pax arrives at your gathering, guard well your virtues and keep the dashing Julian at umbrella’s distance. For if you let him get too close, then you, too, may fall under the spell of the devilish Julian Pax!

Until next time, fellow art appreciators, keep exploring your own artistic yearnings!