Mr. and Mrs. Handron

Yesterday I had the privilege to photograph a fantastic wedding day with a great couple. Chelsea and Shelby Handron were married outside with their ceremony taking place at their neighbors house and the reception on their amazing property. They were married on the most popular wedding date ever 7/7/07. Many peopler were married that day for added luck. It is clear to me that Chelsea and Shelby will not be needing luck as they have a very strong connection with a great deal of love that is obvious to anyone that spends any period of time with them. Their pastor had broken her hip earlier in the week. Pretty much everyone in the wedding industry was booked yesterday so they thought about who could perform the ceremony. Chelsea's Dad Ross had done some weddings before so he stepped up to the task. He walked Chelsea down the aisle then turned around, stepped up and performed a beautiful ceremony filled with powerful emotion..laughter, tears and sheer happiness. I could write about the day forever. I am however running behind as I am meeting a great photographer Joe Hein in a few short minutes to shoot another wedding today. I'll be sure to write about it when I can.

Mat

Mariners Pics

Scroll below for more pics and a story about an incredible experience!

Mariners Pics

Mariners Pics

Mariner's

Last night I had an incredible experience and reaffirmed that I would love to be a Sports Photographer!

The Groom from the wedding I had mentioned in a previous post works for the Seattle Mariners. A couple of weeks ago he and his wife emailed that they had worked it out so I would have photographers access to the game. I didn't realize how cool that was! I was given a few pregame instructions and told the rules by Jeff and by the team photographer. One of the rules was to set the camera down during the National Anthem and to be respectful during that time. I was headed to the Press Pit just before the game started when the Anthem began. I stopped where I was, took my hat off and looked to the flag. After a brief moment it dawned on me where I was. I was standing on the field in front of the dugout. I look to my left and there was the entire team lined up next to me! Talk about a bigger-than-life experience!

Ultimately the Mariners did not win, but it was still a great game and the team played hard. I told my good friend Dave Powell from Sparks, Nevada about the opportunity and invited his son to join me for the game. Mike is 15 years old and is a sports fanatic. He spent a few days up here, we hit the Zoo, the Space Needle, he schooled me at basketball (a humbling experience at best) and we got to play catch for a while. We had a great time and to see him on the field during batting practice was priceless. His eyes were about as big as golf balls as Ichiro ran right past him along with all the other players. Again, a bigger-than-life surreal experience. I cannot thank Jeff and Stephanie enough for making it happen.

I took Mike to the airport early this morning and then hit the Zoo all day to cover the Herbie Hancock concert (pics to come later) and a bird show they needed photo's for. I only had a few minutes to pic some photo's from the game so I'm sure I'll be posting more later as I find other favorites. In the meantime, here are some shots and have a great day!

Mat

Sophie's 15 minutes

Just got back from a winemakers dinner at a great restaurant on the water in Seattle called Palisades. While I'd like to think it was because of my wit and charm the servers kept my glass(es) full it was probably because of the cash I kept slipping them...the dinner was incredible and the wine was phenomenal! We were at a table with the owner of the restaurant and her husband who works at Amazon.com. Two ladies to my left who were former original Microsoft employees. My beautiful wife to my right and an old wine snob to her right. As I mentioned I just got back so it's difficult at best to keep the typos to a minimum. As a result I'm going to keep this short. Around the Zoo are pics of my beautiful girl Sophie on the Carousel. Attached is apic of her with her pic.

Have a good one and thanks for the birthday wishes!

Mat

Wedding Crasher

It's not the kind of Wedding Crasher you're thinking of. Friday night I photographed an awesome wedding (pictures to come later this week). We were in a bit of a time crunch to get from the venue to Lake Union for some formals and then back to the venue in time for the wedding. The shoot went well and the Bride and Groom headed back. My assistant Joshua and I loaded our gear into the back seat (which was weird because I always put my stuff in the trunk) and headed off. A car slowed to let me in and make a right hand turn. I went to the left lane and started to turn left when I noticed a car in the oncoming lane going extremely fast so I hit the brakes when BAM! The car that was nice enough to let me in slammed in to me. Crap! Talk about pressure, the wedding was starting shortly and I did not have time to deal with an accident. Fortunately the guy that hit me was pretty cool. We traded names and numbers and I headed up to the wedding. I never did tell the Bride and Groom as I didn't want to put any attention on myself during a day that is all about them. I suppose if they are reading my blog that they will now know :)

It was an exciting part of a great day and I'm glad no one was seriously injured. I'm really glad we didn't store our camera in the trunk! I haven't posted about my new camera but I'm sure I will...the Canon 1D Mark III is in my camera bag now and if you are photographer reading this, let me tell you...it lives up to the hype!

Adios!

Mat

A tragic loss

Friday morning Zookeepers at the Woodland Park Zoo found that Hansa the 6 year old Asian elephant had died in her sleep. Her death came as a huge shock to everyone at the Zoo.

It was particularily shocking to me as Sophie and I were at the Zoo on Monday afternoon just four days before her death. Above are a few of the photo's I took of her that day. I don't go to the elephant habitat very often anymore as it is a bit off the beaten path but Sophie was adament about seeing the elephants that day. Hansa was out playing with her ball, dipping her trunk in the pond and spraying water. We spent around 15 to 20 minutes watching her play and eat. She appeared to be very healthy. The Zoo had reported she had showed signs of being ill but was on her way to a full recovery.

It was obvious the impact had in the Seattle community that night I photographed a wedding and the bride on her wedding day brought up Hansa and commented on how sad it was. I heard many people talking about it. It was the front page story for the Seattle Times. Many people were impacted by her death and she will be missed.

You can read more here ...http://www.zoo.org/pressroom/pr/2007/pr06_08_2007.htm

I'll post happier news tomorrow...the awesome wedding I shot, the car crash I had in the middle of it all (OK, that part isn't so happy), Sophie's 15 minutes of fame and anything else I can think of.

Take care,

Mat

Chelsea and Shelby

On Sunday morning I had the privilege of photographing Chelsea and Shelby. They are getting married on July 7. Shelby is a personal trainer with a state of the art gym adjacent to their house. After I had booked their wedding I learned that he is the guy responsible for several of my employees arriving to work barely able to walk! I hear a workout with Shelby is not one you would soon forget. He really knows his stuff.

Chelsea and Shelby were a lot of fun to photograph and I can't wait to shoot their wedding. We started the day at their gym and travelled down to Gasworks Park in Seattle. You can view a slideshow of their images here...

http://www.mathaywardphoto.com/7707.htm

Take care,

Mat

Happy Birthday Lea!

Just a quick note to wish the love of my life a very happy birthday (May 26)!

Savannah the Singer

We could be looking at the 2018 winner of American Idol right here. My oldest daughter Savannah took the stage tonight in front of a huge audience at the Everett auditorium to belt out a few tunes. She did a great job and was quite the ham onstage. At the end of their songs she blew kisses to the audience over and over again. Pretty funny stuff.

It was a neat event, though it started off somewhat terrifying. The music teacher from Savannah's school in charge of the event took the stage, got on the microphone to begin the event by adamantly exclaiming SHHH! SHHH! SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! The following is my exact thought process when she did that....

"Whoa"

She followed the Shhing with "Fine, I'll just wait until you are ready to listen." There were at least 1,000 people in the auditorium. It was literally standing room only with hundreds of small children and she wanted it absolutely silent. I've got to be honest with you, it freaked me out. She shhh'd another 12-15 times when a man sitting next to Lea leaned over and said "I think we've just been scolded." It totally brought me back to my school days when being a bit rambunctious in the back of the class. I know it's hard to believe, but yes...I could get a bit distracted from time to time as a student. I can assure you that I was absolutely silent as the music teacher had the mic...OH! I almost forgot the best part. She gave the instructions, they sang a song and a child went to the microphone to speak. The music teacher took the microphone from him and said "Some of you were paying attention and behaved. Most of you did not pay attention and see that someone was walking towards the microphone." Whoa, I am freaking out again just thinking about it.

Anyway, Savannah did great, she had a great time and it was a proud moment for me to see her up on that stage singing her little heart out.

Have a great day!

Mat

My buddy Tad

So a few weeks ago the neighbor kids were very excited. "Tadpoles!" We could hear them shouting from a block away. We grabbed the girls and walked to the shallow puddles and sure enough found some tadpoles swimming around. I scooped up a half dozen of them and brought them home. The next day was hot out and all of the water evaporated from the puddle/pond. Not a good thing to happen if you are a tadpole.

The 6 we caught are doing well at the house. They say it takes about 6 weeks to turn into a frog so we're about halfway there. You can see from the photo of this little guy that he is sprouting some legs. They really are fascinating.

See ya,

Mat

Shrek

So this afternoon Lea and I took the girls to see Shrek the Third. Shrek 2 is one of Sophie's favorite movies so she was very excited to see this one as was Savannah and well, I should be honest...me too :)

I had heard mixed reviews from people, but I wasn't disappointed at all. There were quite a few laugh-out-loud moments and the story kept me in it for the most part. The girls loved it too. Lea said she liked it as well, but then she asked what all the fairy tale characters were doing there. "What do you mean?" I asked. She confessed that she hasn't seen the first two! What! I could't believe it. I refused to answer any of her questions based on prinicipal. How can she have not seen either of them? I kid you not, with Sophie and Savannah I have probably seen each one at least 10 times. Unreal. Don't even get me started about how my wife "LEA" has never seen any of the Star Wars movies either.

Promise Me

So last night it was getting fairly late and Lea was settling down for the night. I started to make my usual trek downstairs to hit the computer and she laid the guilt trip on me. Those of you that know me, know that I was raised Catholic and those of you that know the Catholic Church know that guilt plays a major part in that. As a result of my upbringing I have a guilty conscience that I simply cannot escape. Lea did not want me to go downstairs. I tried to keep myself occupied. I plucked some nose hairs, I rearranged my sock drawer, I messed with the cat a little bit. The entire time I was sure to let out an audible sigh letting Lea know that I was bored and that I was only up there as a result of her exploiting my guilty conscience.

"Why don't you read your book?" She asked. "I finished it last night." For the last several weeks I have been reading a book called....read past this if you offend easily..."Whores, an oral biography of Perry Farrell and Janes Addiction." If you have never heard of Janes Addiction you can see a live performance of one of my favorite songs ever for just mind numbing adrenaline here at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIm6oTNMqko&mode=related&search=. I grew up with Janes Addiction and let me tell you if you want to read a book that will help you feel normal about your life and lifestyle (unless you are Paris Hilton reading this..and if you are, Paris give me a call I would love to do a portrait session with you) then you should read this book. When I was a teenager I went to see Janes Addiction perform at the Starry Night Club in Portland, Oregon while they were touring for their new album Nothing's Shocking. To this day I say it was the greatest show I have ever seen in my life. I have seen them multiple times since then but that was the best. A close second was the Enit Festival in San Francisco but I digrss...While my lifestyle...heck, not just my lifestyle but my entire life has changed dramatically since those days I still look back at Janes Addiction as my favorite band of all time. I used to listen to that album over and over and over again. Just a couple of weeks ago I bought their greatest hits album (very weird to think of Janes Addiction as a band with a greatest hits album) and I've been listening to it while reading the book. Wild stuff to say the least. Perry, if you google your name and this blog comes up give me a call, I would love to do a portrait session with you too. Much more than with Paris...though if we could get you both in the studio that would be pretty darn cool :)

Well, I've gotten beyond off topic here. The whole point of this blog was to write about the book I just read.

So I told Lea I had finished my book and she points to a book on the dresser that she bought last week. Promise Me by one of my favorite authors Harlan Coban. http://www.harlancoben.com/static/novels/pm.htm

I had seen the book there but didn't check it out until last night. When I did I realized that he had brought back some of my favorite characters of all books...Myron Bolitar and his sociopathic-but-lovable friend and savior Win. Had I known that I would have bought it hard back whenever it came out. So I started to read it last night around 12:30 or so and I finished it about 2 hours ago. We went to church this morning and I had lunch with the girls. I did some work on my web page (check it out, a couple of new galleries) but other than that I spent the day reading. It was awesome! I have been working so much lately. I finished Michael and Maya's wedding. I've almost got the Queen, It's a New Day images done and tomorrow I go to work at 5:45 AM for inventory to begin a 13 day, 145 hour work week at the Fish House. I decided I would take a "me day" I don't know if I've ever read an entire novel in less than 24 hours but this was the one to do it with. If you haven't read Harlan Coben before you should! He is so funny, his books are action packed and you immediately relate to and root for the main characters. They are all good. You could pick this one up and read it without having read others, but I would recommend you start from the beginning because once you read one of his books you will want to read them all.

Have a good one!

Mat

Michael and Maya

The wedding photo's from Michaeal and Maya's wedding on May 5 are finished. I am so happy with how they turned out. As I had mentioned in the blog before, the wedding day was filled with tradition, love, tears and laughter. All the necessary components of a great wedding and an even better marriage. Congratulations Michael and Maya!

You can view a slideshow featuring some of their images here...

http://www.mathaywardphoto.com/Pham.htm

The complete wedding is available to be seen here...

http://kkstudioconnect.com/apps/customer/index.php?clientID=6858&albumID=8100

Have a great day!

Family Portrait

At my Dad's house on the lake there is just one old window remaining after the remodel has been taking place. I don't know if they are replacing this one too, though I kind of hope they aren't as it just goes to an isolated room in the back of the basement. Walking by it I came up with this idea for a family portrait. It isn't exactly a JCPenney Studio quality portrait but I've never in my life attempted to duplicate, replicate or imitate JCPenney, Sears, Picture People, or any studio remotely close to that so I guess I'm OK with it.

What do you think?

Published!

I absolutely love to see my work in print. Today when I got home from work I found the June Issue of Popular Photography Magazine in the Mailbox www.popphoto.com. On page 20 I found an image of the beautiful Beth that I had taken last year. Pop Photo bought the image from me through Fotolia. You can see my Fotolia Portfolio here... http://www.fotolia.com/p/19000. Currently with nearly 400,000 members, approximately 40,000 of whom are photographers, I am ranked #23! Not too shabby for a guy with zero stock photo's 18 months ago if you don't mind me tooting my own horn.

Anyway, I wanted to brag about the pic in Popular Photography. It's one of my favorite magazines so it was a great feeling to get an image in there.

Have a good one!

Mat

Maya

Here is a nice photo of Maya from this past Saturday. I'm currently in the process of going through the images to pick which make the final cut. This was a nice moment just after her parents placed the veil on her.

The Group

Read the post below...

Many photo's on the way

It has been a busy couple of weeks at Hayward Photography...there, now that I've got the understatement of the day finished I can tell you what's been going on.

Last Monday, approximately 200 women were bussed up from battered women's shelters around the state and given the royal treatment. Pastor Judy Hoff and hundreds of volunteers rolled out the red carpet (literally) and treated these extraordinary women to a 5 course meal, new hair styles, a makeover, massage, foot bath, waxing....the works. I was there all day to document the event and let me say that it was great to be a part of again.

The week before at the Woodland Park Zoo I was allowed inside the Grizzly Bear Habitat to photograph an awesome event. Zookeepers set up a campsight inside of the habitat and left food lying around to demonstrate what happens if you don't store your food properly while camping in Bear country. Wait until you see the pictures...they trashed the place! It was awesome. I was given access to the roof of the bear habitat for an unobstructed view. Talk about fun.

Speaking of the Zoo, if you happen to be in the area, stop by and walk along the Savannah Trail, there are tons of my photo's up along the trail, especially near and in the Lion habitat. Most all of the lion photo's are mine and many others as well. I absolutely love to see my work being used. It really gave me that warm fuzzy feeling. The Zoo has opened a new Maasai adventure. Children are able to hand feed giraffes, there are tons of other things involved with it, but the Giraffes are the main event. Sunday was the Grand opening of the event and to kick it off they printed off thousands of posters to give to zoo visitors. What was on the poster? I thought you would never ask...a head shot of a giraffe shot by yours truly. The zoo is great about putting photo credits on everything so my name is right there on the corner. It is so cool to know that so many people were given a poster with my photo on it.

On Saturday I spent nearly 15 hours with Michael and Maya Pham on their wedding day. It was such a great experience. The day began with a formal tea ceremony with Indonesian tradition, that was followed by another Tea Ceremony with Vietnamese traditions. They had a beautiful traditional Catholic wedding ceremony and a great wedding reception in Marysville to cap the day. It was such an honor to be there for the entire day. I shot wayyyy too many pictures, but it's so hard to refrain from firing the shutter when there are such captivating people and events right there for me to photograph. It was culturally enlightening. I really enjoyed it and I'll be sure to post pictures asap.

Getting home late Saturday night, I immediately went through my post wedding tradition of uploading the images to my computer and then backing them up onto DVD's. With so many images this took quite a while, I looked at the clock on my computer and it read 12:30....OK, I thought to myself. I've got another long day ahead of me, better hit the sack. I spent another 20 minutes getting organized and when I went upstairs the microwave read 1:50! What the heck! My computers clock never was able to figure out the weird Daylight Savings Time this year I think so I was an hour behind. I woke up at 7 the next morning and drove down to Portland for a birthday party for Savannah and Sophie with our families from Oregon. We went to Jump Planet which features large inflatable objects for everyone to jump on...man, I am in seriously sad shape. It was great to see the family. I think we all had a good time. I'll be sure to post those pics when they are ready too.

After the party was done, we packed up and headed back up north...yowza, I was tired! We made a pit stop at my Dad's house on the Lake in Olympia to check on the status of the construction. They appear to be pretty behind, my Dad is such a pushover I'm afraid that the contractors are putting his job off for more demanding people. I'm going to try to get down there again next week. If they haven't gotten anything else done I'm going to wrestle their contact information from my Dad and raise heck with them to hopefully light a fire under their butt. I was hoping we could have a 60th birthday party for the old man there, but the "4 week job" has already taken about 12 weeks and they aren't even close to being done.

That's about it for now. Again, I'll be sure to post some pics asap.

Have a good one!

The Rainforest Cafe

We had a great time for Sophie's Birthday at the Rainforest Cafe. I gotta tell you, I'm in the restaurant business so I know what I'm talking about...it takes a special kind of person to work at a restaurant like that! Wow, lots of kids, lots of noise, activity. Loads of fun to eat there, a great experience. But to work there....yikes.

Sophie was very proud to wear her birthday ribbon and told everyone she was the birthday girl. She absolutely loved the Frog photographed here. While he (?) stopped by our table for this photo, that wasn't quite enough for her. She followed him around every time she saw him. We were seated next to the elephants which scared the crap out of her until I told her that the loud noises they were making was elephant language for Happy Birthday Sophie! At that point, she thought they were pretty cool. The Gorillas though, there was no convincing of anything, they just scared the crap out of her.

So, another birthday gone by. Hard to believe she's 3. Two weeks until Savannah's birthday.

See you in the funny pages,

Mat

Sophie's Birthday

Thursday April 26, 2007 Sophie is turning 3! It's hard to believe. When Savannah was this age, Lea was delivering Sophie. I hope that Lea isn't getting any wild ideas at this stage of our lives. Especially since my operation...yikes!

We are heading to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner (www.rainforestcafe.com) tomorrow night. Lea spent the afternoon making and decorating a great Princess Ariel Cake. Check this thing out, it's awesome. Right now Sophie's favorite princess is Ariel, though if we put the right DVD in, her favorite princess can quickly switch to Jasmine. Of course she will be spoiled rotten. I will not promise to upload any pics tomorrow, but I will do my best. So many new photo's in my computer right now. I really need to get busy on this blog.

Be sure to call and wish Sophie a Happy Birthday tomorrow!

I haven't forgotten

No excuse, just been a bit lazy lately.....a new blog post is on the way I am sure. I can tell you about breaking my lens at the Tulip festival, our trip to the Zoo, my big news at the zoo, moving up through the ranks at Fotolia, my wedding anniversary (April Fools Day...yes, I do know I'm behind!), sticking one of our frogs on Savannah's head for a photo op. I'm sure there are around 100 other things I've forgotten but I will do my best to catch up soon.

See you then!

Mat