Talking with Matt Menhenett
Hey hey, my friend! Are you ready to dive into an amazing image?
My guest for today’s Inside the Photo is Matt, a designer and photographer whose work is absolutely stunning.
I’m Matt, the barely functional entity behind Edge of the Map. I take lots of photos and design lots of things; some of those things are good and some of them never see the light of day. I live in Cornwall in the UK with my wife and dog, and spend a large amount of time on the coast and shoot with a wide variety of weird lenses and camera combinations. Somehow people keep saying my photos are good and I’m never quite sure if they’re being sarcastic or not, either way, I’ve won a few commendations and that’s always a nice surprise.
I remember, when I first stumbled upon his images on Vero, I immediately thought “Wow, these are great”.
His style is immediately recognisable and if you take a look at the pictures you will always find a certain mood, nearly nostalgic.
HEROES – © Matt Menhenett – Edge of the Map
If you were to ask me which photo I was the most proud of it would be this one; if you were to ask me what photo was I most likely to cradle close to me and refuse to show the world it would also be this one. HEROES holds a special place in my heart as it’s exactly what I wanted after, quite frankly, a ridiculous number of test shots, poor conditions and the inability to control the weather.
Have you ever seen those “found footage” type scenarios? You know the photos of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot where the subject is sort of human-shaped in this unsettling environment? I wanted that – a semi-recognizable subject entrenched in comfortably unfamiliar settings, and being so close to the beach I knew what scenario I wanted.
I’d spent a long time practising my “drift” style of photos where I track the subject during a longer than average exposure. Mixing this idea into a surf scene is always tricky as it requires a bit of luck, and you can double that effort when shooting from a drone. It requires the subject to be sufficiently set out from the background which from this angle meant the wave had to have a sufficient amount of froth so the dark wetsuit would stand out, but not so light it consumed the surrounding area as I still wanted that “mystical surrounding” type of thing.
The next step was to assume the right technical and flight requirements, the angle was quite easy to channel, but panning a drone from a distance at a similar speed to the subject was tricky, especially with light winds. After that it was a matter of some simple editing, the colour version received some shifts to the blues and the mono version simply required a small gradient filter to accentuate highlights and shadows in the lower and upper thirds. All this was done in the attempt to give the setting a little extra magic while being true to the original scene.
I’m happy with how this turned out overall. A semi-mystical “Sasquatchian” surfer is controlling their environment to a point of ownership. We don’t know who they are, what they wanted or any of their motives. They’re creatures of the sea in this scenario and we’re sat a distance away from them, observing but unable to interact, just like those old photos of a cryptid running through the woods. I think that the alienation is quite exciting as it provokes that mythology, but then again, it’s also just a nice photo of a surfer that’s a bit blurry. It’s all open to interpretation I guess, and I’m not the type of person to judge someone for what they see in the world.
This image is incredible. The movement, the feeling of loneliness, the grain and the black and white conversion. I love everything about this shot.
Now, I highly recommend you check out Matt’s images on his socials, listed here, and of course, give him a follow to see many more great images.
Thanks a lot for being my guest, Matt!
Take care and talk soon!