Photographer of the week- Mat Hayward

Over the last few months, I have had an opportunity to get to know a great new up and coming photographer named Mat Hayward. His passion and zeal for photography, Fotolia, and stock photography is addicting. I asked Mat to share his background in photography and Fotolia experience with our readers.

Here are his words…

I have been in love with photography as long as I can remember. I can remember back when I was 8 years old trying to capture the magic of a sunset on the lake in front of my Grandmother’s house in Olympia, WA using my Kodak camera. I still have the photo in an album. It would have been great as I remember the colors being spectacular. Sad thing is, I was using Black and White film :-) These days, the Lake House belongs to my Dad and I’m still taking photo’s there. I like to think they are a little better now.

My passion for photography is still the same, but my toys and my knowledge have evolved. At the moment I have 2 Canon 20D’s with a Tokina 12-24 wide angle lens, Canon’s 17-55 2.8 IS lens, Sigma’s 70-200 2.8, the Canon 85 1.8 and a few other random lenses for fun. My next Fotolia money purchase is going to be the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS lens. I love the Image Stabilizer! Before I bought the Canon’s I used to shoot with a Nikon D2H.

My true passion for photography is shooting weddings. I loved the feel of the Nikon and the speed of it also. I find myself more often than not however in very low light situations with my cameras and I hate to use a flash (I have two 550 EX speedlights). For me, switching to Canon was a no brainer when I compared the amount of noise in low light situations. What do I love about shooting weddings? I love the energy of the day. The nervous bride and groom. The excited parents. There is electricity in the air and I have the distinct honor of being in the front row as a bystander to one of the biggest days of their lives. It is a huge responsibility to be charged with capturing the day. There are so many variables involved with shooting a wedding. Countless changes in lighting situations as the day goes on. Sometimes there are equipment challenges which is why it is always critical to have at least 2 camera’s on hand. It is so incredibly rewarding when the day is done to be able to look through the photos you have taken and to realize that you have captured the day in a manner that will allow the Bride and Groom to be able to look back at their photo’s and remember their wedding day as though it just happened.

Photography passion number 2: Fotolia! I am absolutely addicted! I read about the site in a photography magazine in January of 2006. The article made it sound too good to be true and I was skeptical at first. I uploaded a couple of pictures for fun and I’m pretty sure the first ones were declined for technical reasons. That ticked me off and I accepted it as a challenge. It means a lot to me to know that the photos I do have accepted have been scrutinized aggressively and were good enough to make the cut. I went out and started taking photos specifically for selling as stock. I would shoot Stop signs, blades of grass, whatever I could think of. Gradually I started having a few photos accepted and after a few weeks a photo sold. I coined the phrase on the Fotolia Forum…”The Fotolia Dance of Joy” and it was appropriate. I was pumped up about my sale and started taking more photos. I found myself looking through magazines, studying billboards and web pages to see what kind of photo’s were being used. I am a volunteer photographer at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA. I began uploading zoo pics as well. Slowly, I started to sell a couple of photo’s here and a couple of photo’s there. It wasn’t the billions of dollars I expected to come rolling in to my bank account the moment I uploaded a photo of course. I realized after a short period of time that in order to be successful selling stock photographs, you have to work hard. This is not easy money by any means. It requires, patience, a good eye, a minimum of basic photography skills and a decent working knowledge of color correction using whatever tools you have available to you.

There are two other items I have to mention when talking about my recent success on Fotolia. My beautiful, extremely patient and understanding wife Lea who understands my passion bordering on obsession with photography and allows me to pursue my dreams. I work nearly 60 hours a week as the General Manager of a large Seafood restaurant in North Seattle. My wife and I have 2 beautiful daughters and quite frankly, photography takes up a lot of time that I should be spending with my amazing family. Lea knows how much I love photography however, and she has been incredibly generous by sacrificing time for me. She is my best model and is brutally honest when giving feedback on photo’s I take. Skip ahead just 10 months and my Fotolia portfolio has expanded to nearly 800 photographs, and I have multiple sales on a daily basis that bring in hundreds of dollars on a monthly basis which I turn around and spend on more photography equipment so I can take more photo’s to upload to Fotolia to buy more toys to take more pictures…hey, wait a minute!  In addition to what I have accepted right now, I have several hundred other photos waiting for me to edit, upload and keyword that I hope will be very successful.

The 2nd person I need to acknowledge is my good friend Cory Parris of Cory Parris photography in Seattle, WA. Reading books, joining internet forums are very helpful when learning photography. Nothing can compare however to having someone who is a full time professional photographer willing to share with you his or her tips, tricks and secrets to their success. Cory’s photography is intense, passionate and powerful and he has been generous enough to share his knowledge with me and like my wife to offer brutally honest feedback. Without his help, I would be still stuck trying to figure out why my images are so noisy when shooting at ISO 3200.

It doesn’t do you any good to hear people tell you that you can do no wrong with your photograph’s. The moment you stop learning is the moment you should hang up your camera straps. What fun would it be if we were perfect photographers all the time? I spend a lot of time in the forums on Fotolia and I try to offer critiques when asked. To new people just getting started with stock photography I would encourage you to look at your photos through the eyes of an impartial viewer and genuinely try to find ways to improve. I have seen so many people take it so personally when their photos are declined for technical reasons or for various other reasons. They want to know how anyone could possibly reject this beautiful photo of a daffodil in a patch of grass. Sometimes, the fact of the matter is, the photo just isn’t that interesting. It was a hard pill for me to swallow at first, but as I look back through some of my photo is that I was disappointed to see declined I realize that they were right. The photo just flat out sucked. Of course, I can only think of one photo I have taken that sucked, but it was only because I was at ISO 3200 and it was a bright day 

Earlier, I mentioned looking at ads and stock photo’s in use to learn what sold. I feel that I now have a decent eye for spotting potentially successful stock opportunities and I take them. On a recent family vacation, we were walking along an abandoned road near the beach and I took 15 minutes to pose my girls looking down the road I love this series of photos and I believe they have tremendous potential for stock. In one sense, it broke up our day and we were a little behind. In another sense, it became part of day and I have the photos blown up and hanging in their rooms now.

The really tricky part once you get good with the camera, get a feel for what stock photos are and acquire an eye for spotting potential stock opportunities is to actually sell your photo’s.

The number one best way to increase your sales is to increase the visibility of your photos. The best way to do that is to use plenty of Keywords! Don’t get carried away of course, if it is a photo of a banana you wouldn’t want to use the keyword Love. But you would want to use words like produce, yellow, tropical, fruit, breakfast, peel…on and on. If I really applied myself I could probably come up with 20 pertinent keywords so that potential buyers would find my photo if it was what they needed. I remember at first struggling to come up with 7 Keywords to fulfill the minimum requirement. Now I have to make a conscious effort to stop.

I absolutely love Fotolia. There is a good core community of photographers that consistently provide good commentary in the Forum. There are so many amazing photo’s available on the site that I never stop being awed by the incredible talent out there. Because of Fotolia I am constantly working to enhance my skills as a photographer and I very much look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with Fotolia!

Thanks Mat. I appreciate your energy and dedication; you are a great example of a photographer who has caught the vision of Fotolia.

Click here to view more images from Mat's portfolio.