About Mathew Hutchins & MatsPhotoMojo

MatsPhotoMojo.com is home to Mathew Hutchins online photography portfolio and photo mojo experience.  My name is Mathew Hutchins, aka m@ — yup, sound it out, and sometimes Hutch.  I am a photographer and multimedia designer and try my best to be an artist.  I’m located in Northwest Indiana and the Chicago-land area.  Below is a “little” bio for you.

A Little History

I’ve always been a creative person.  Whether it was doodling, tinkering, music or trying to build that perfect birdhouse for my Mom.  I find great comfort in creating and the creative process.  The gratification of finishing a piece or project has always been a motivating factor.  I started tinkering around with photography when I was a little guy.  I would often ask my Mom if I could take “a picture” with her camera at parties and events, returning 15 minutes later with the whole roll of film used up.  “Sorry Mom!” As I grew my love and interest for viewing the world through a little box grew as well.  I really started to get into photography when I was a teenager and in high school.  Along with taking as many art and photography classes as possible.  I was fortunate enough to attend a high school that offered a variety art and photography classes.  After entering the darkroom for the first time during my first black & white photography class, I was officially hooked.

I attended Columbia College to further my quest in the art and design world.  With being the fickle person, I am, I chose to pursue a degree in Interactive Multimedia and concentrated in Video and Photography.  I figured I could learn and potentially pursue any number of the digital art fields – graphic design, web design, animation, 3D, sound, video and obviously photography.  So far in my “9-5” work career I’ve had the opportunity to utilize all these media’s.  I’ve found the most success and use with graphic and web design where I’ve found myself in numerous graphic design and interactive media roles.   Photography often played a role inside of these roles.

Technique or Something Like That

Coming up and learning photography with film and in the darkroom, I used to get caught up and bothered about trying to keep photographs as “pure” and as far away from Photoshop as possible while entering the digital realm.  After a bit of time past, a few shows came and gone, many of conversations and debates, and countless hours dwelling on this subject – it hit me one day.  We’re creating, so let’s just create and not always wrapped up in “preserving” something that in all reality, may not have even been there in the first place.  Not to mention, it really isn’t a big deal.  It’s your creation, your piece, your art, go with it.  Even with film most photographers logged countless hours in the darkroom.  Some of the greats are best known for the amount of time spent in the darkroom.  The great Ansel Adams was especially known for his insane amount of time editing in the darkroom.  The point is that even then, in the analog days, we still used quite a bit of post editing to make the image happen.  Sometimes the image wouldn’t even have been an “image” if it wasn’t for the post.

So, I do like to do some post editing.  And yes, I do like to learn and try new things.  But, I do also enjoy trying to showcase a photograph the way it was taken (not to always be confused with “the way it looked”).  What do I do?  I simply mix it up.  Some photographs I try to do little to no editing to try to keep the image as close to when I hit that little button as possible.  Other images I may go to “work” a bit with the editing.  With these shots I may do some minor tweaks and others I may push it a bit more with experimenting and trying new or different techniques and such.  As you may see, some pieces that I created have started off as a photograph and after editing the final image looks more like an illustration.  At the end of the day I’m trying to be creative and ultimately have fun with the whole creative process.  That’s what it’s really all about – creating, having fun and feeling good about it.

All Most There…

I try to do at least a few art fairs a year.  I often participate in 5-10 shows a year, but every year is different.  Most shows are juried shows and have a wide range and variety very talented of artist and their work.  One thing pretty much remains constant from show to show and year to year – the artist are great!  It’s been a wonderful journey thus far gaining friends, peers even mentors.  I’ve learned so much not only from my personal experiences, but I’ve learned equally as much from the other artists… and the general show attendee for that matter.  My goal is to continue to do these art fairs as well as find some gallery time and space.  Check out where you can find me, click here…

Thanks for visiting. Please drop me a line, any and all feedback is welcome. Please share.  And please always create.