Hey guys, 

It’s been awhile. This is a somewhat personal post, so if you don’t want to know me as a person you can stop reading here. 

There’s a Kanye West song called “Real Friends.” You should check it out if you have a minute, the lyrics are deep but it talks about how he has been neglecting some of his friends. 

There’s a lyric in the song where he goes “Can’t remember the last time I wasn’t in a hurry.” I feel like Kanye in that way, whenever I see my friends or get to come home from Indiana I’m always on the clock. “Sorry guys I only have an hour.” Then within that hour I’ll still have work texts / calls / emails to get back to. 

I’m glad I’ve reached a point where I am busy, but at times I do wish I wasn’t in such a hurry, wasn’t always on the hustle. I was supposed to come home for Thanksgiving, but a couple jobs came up so I stayed in LA. 

Balancing it all is a challenge. I need to maybe work on saying no to some and yes to my friends more often. I appreciate my friends that kick it with me knowing I’m in a hurry. Don’t know what I would do without you guys. So here are some cheesy friend photos.  

Later guys, I’m in a hurry

Home. Such a simple word, yet so ambiguous and confusing in my head. “Matt when are you coming home to Indiana?” Wait, I don’t live in Indiana, but it’s home? “Matt I’m surprised you left your camera at home.” Wait, home, LA is home? 

It’s difficult to move over 2,000 miles away from your friends and family. Then get handed the keys to an apartment with my roommates and walk into a blank room. Blinds and a stove, that’s about it. This is home? It’s 75 degrees outside in January here, yet this apartment feels colder than being outside in Indiana during a snow storm. It takes a while. It’s taken time for me. For the longest time I don’t think I’ve truly moved in here. It hasn’t felt like home here. 

Where is home? What is home? I’ve been living in this apartment since January 6th. Tonight, I’m sitting at my desk in my room, with the TV on, eating dinner. I think tonight, this is home. I’ve got friends here, colleagues, clients, coworkers. I’ve built some kind of life here. I’m home in LA, Hollywood, California. 

There are definitely days where I think of just moving back to Indiana. But let’s be real, I haven’t even given this city a chance. Of course I had more of my life built in Indiana, I lived there for 21 years. I’ve only lived in LA a year now. It takes time. It gets better every day. More friends, more events, more parties. 

I’m going back to Indiana in a couple days. It will be good to see my Indiana friends and family. I’ve got so much history with them, they will always have a special place in my heart. 

Thanks again for reading yet another misguided rant full of grammatical errors. I really write these more for myself than anyone else. Not sure why I even post these, because they probably appear rather self centered. I guess I’ll worry about that later.

Fingers crossed I get a window seat on my flight Friday morning.

Cheers, 

Matt Shouse

The longer you do something the more you learn about it, as well as yourself. I’ve been doing this photo / video thing for a bit now. I’ve learned that people will pay you money to click a button, but people will pay you more money to capture someone or something in a way that also fits you. If someone sees a photo and says oh that must be “so and so’s” photo, that’s what people want. They don’t want a basic photo, they want something cool, with an artists’ unique spin on it. The problem as the artist is finding that spin, style, brand and also will people like it? 

That’s the tough part. We can all click a button, but can you take a photo in such a way that people identify it as your work, without seeing your name on it? That’s the struggle. It takes time, I’m still working it out. I’ve been shooting for a long time, but really not long at all. 

In the beginning and still really to this day I’ve been trying to get more models and faces in my portfolio. I don’t want people to come to my website and only see one face. It would look like I was brand new. 

Ironically enough though, my favorite books are photo books of one person shot by one single photographer. For instance I picked up a book on Steve McQueen showcasing photos only shot by William Claxton, or the book on Kate Moss shot only by Mario Testino, and Lady Gaga shot by Terry Richardson. 

As photographers when we work with someone new, we try to get to know them and get comfortable with them as soon as possible so we can grab their personality in a still frame within 2 hours time or less. This is difficult in itself and sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. I’m finding that I enjoy photographing the same person more and more. The photos I get on the 3rd or 4th time shooting someone feel the most real to me. It’s a real relationship, a real friendship, not something we just manufactured in 10 minutes of meeting each other. I’ve shot with Allie Gonino I think more than anyone else, So yes you can see Allie all over my instagram and website, but I’m growing to be okay with that. We’re friends and we get good images. We get to skip the small talk part and go right into the styling and creating part of the photo shoot.

 Dropping a few images from different shoots below. 

Maybe all of us aren’t meant to photograph 500 people, maybe some of us would rather photograph 5 different people 100 times. Just a thought. 

Matt Shouse

Photographer