Matt Weisshaar: Street & LIfestyle Photographer
I first met Matt when I was in highschool, we both are from the same community in rural Saskatchewan. Maybe more than a decade later, and many moves in between (on Matt’s part) we are both living in the same city on the West Coast. Sometimes I felt like we crossed paths in Saskatchewan when we were both home for the holidays but the best place for me to keep track of him was through his photography account, Streetweis. Matt has always had a strong understanding of design, art and technology and he demonstrates his skills through his snaps as he travels. I was able to get together with Matt in a noisy bar in downtown Vancouver to chat about his work and photography in general.
MJ: Tell me about your favourite camera of all time.
MW: One of my favourite camera of all time is the Nikon F3, it’s a professional film camera from the 80s. It’s very mechanical and tactile and has a really good feeling to it. It’s a bit big and bulky. I’ve been able to get some of my dream cameras these past few years, as well. This is my dream camera, a Leica M6. There’s something about it, it’s simple and mechanical. When I look through the viewfinder it’s like looking into a different dimension which is really special. I try to take it wherever I go. I have to say that it’s my favourite camera.
MJ: When you say “it’s like looking through a different dimension” I totally know what that feeling is - I remember feeling this way when I looked through my dad’s film camera for the first time and felt like it was better than looking through my own eyes. Where did you end up picking up your Leica?
MW: I got this one in Europe, actually. I am always on the lookout for cameras and this one is actually made in Canada. There was a period of time when Leica was almost bankrupted and changed some of their assembly line to Canada for some time. I have another one like this that I bought here in Vancouver but this one I bought in Europe and had shipped here. It’s really my dream camera.
MJ: How did you go about trying out the Leica series before trying this one?
MW: Honestly, it was just that famous street photographers had mostly shot with this type of camera so it was something that I felt I had to have. I hadn’t even shot with this camera before but I knew I wanted it. Now I don’t shoot with much else. This is actually all I brought and shot with on my trip to Arizona recently.
MJ: Oh really! That’s amazing, the photos from that trip were amazing. Where do you get your photos developed?
MW: I get my photos developed around here at a place called The Lab. I’ve shopped around a bit in Vancouver and I’ve found that they’re the best. I’d like to develop myself but I put my faith in the lab. When I was in London I had everything for my own lab but I just never used it because I knew the lab would do it best and they have the space.
MJ: Nice. And what kind of film do you typically like to use?
MW: I tyically shoot anything. I typically shoot Kodax Triax 400 which is a black and white film. I really like Portra 400 when it’s available. And I really like Kodax UltraMax 400, it’s a cheaper film.
MJ: Do you shoot digital, or do you shoot all film?
MW: I do shoot digital but there’s something lately about shooting film that draws me to it. The mystery and the waiting to get the photos back is really special.
MJ: Cool. How long would you say you’ve been doing photography?
MW: I think I really started doing photography a lot when I was 15 or 16 in highschool. There was a class called “multi media group” and I joined with them and started doing the school’s sports photography. This is when I started shooting a lot. But I was thinking about a memory early today, kind of like my earliest memory of realizing what a camera was. My dad shot on a Cannon AE-1 when we were younger. We were on a roadtrip with the family and I was holding his camera as he was driving. I was looking at it and checking it out, feeling the dials. I started to take photos with it and I was so infatuated with what it was like to hold the camera and look through the viewfinder. I wasn’t even worried about what the photos would look like I was just holding the camera and seeing the world through a different lens.
MJ: Were your parents encouraging in that direction?
MW: My dad was, ya. Maybe a lot of families are like this but I noticed that our family has a large archive of photos dating back to the fifties. My grandpa was always taking photos and I really appreciate it. It’s a dying art, having catalogues of lives documented. I can go back home and look through boxes and boxes of slides. I can hold them up on a slide projector and see amazing images of the fifties and sixties.
MJ: I know what you mean, I feel the same way about our family photos. So much of it seems so overlooked for not only the history but also the quality of the photos. Did you start shooting with more film or digital?
MW: No, I started with digital when I was doing the sports photography. I did have a little film camera but I wouldn’t even know what I was shooting. I learned mostly through digital. When I was living in the UK I was turned onto film and haven’t really looked back at all. I was influenced by photographers on YouTube and that’s where I find a lot of my inspiration from.
MJ: I find film can be finicky to work with at night. For street photography that could be really difficult.
MW: A lot of street photographers that work in the night use flash and they get in people’s faces with flash. I’ve never tried it. There’s photographers in New York that will carry around a handheld flash and jump in front of people to get their reactions and faces, which is pretty amazing. I like to be more stealthy than that, myself.
MJ: I guess in some ways photography is a different thing for different people. For me, photography is where my mind seems to go when I’m at rest. What is photography for you?
MW: Right now photography is something that I try to incorporate into my lifestyle. Years ago I’d go out with the intention of shooting but now I have a camera with me at all times so that I can document the day to day. If I always have the camera with me I’ll probably be shooting. I want something to look back on one day. If I ever have children, or my sister’s children, they can have a glimpse into what my life looked like.
MJ: Do you think that the perspective of the previous and next generation has changed with ours?
MW: I do. This is like, what keeps me up at night. You know, until the FaceBook era, everyone was shooting on film. You had a tangible copy of the photo, you had a negative that you could have rescanned and reprinted if you wanted. Whereas now, everybody — I won’t knock cellphone photography — but now everybody takes a million photos of thier kids, they don’t back it up, and all these memories can be gone. Before we had the option to do this, people took the effort to take their photos well, took them to the lab to get them printed properly and then stored them properly. Now with social media photos lose their resolution and it’s sad becuase all these memories are going to get digitally destroyed in some ways. Now, even if I’m shooting digital I try to store backups in multiple places so that I can get the originals back in full resolution. With my negatives I like to store them in binders so that even if I lose copies of film it can be rescanned.
MJ: Overall, what do you think you shoot the most of?
MW: So, it used to be street photography. When I lived in London I was inspired by being in a big city. Now, I shoot mostly lifestyle photography. It can be anything from landscape to friends or documentary photography. I try to avoid telling people to pose for photos, just snapping photos unsolicited.
MJ: Do you find you need breaks when you’re shooting lifestyle photography because it’s so close to your personal life?
MW: I take breaks sometimes, I’ll go whole weekends without shooting. I’ve shot in weird head spaces too and I’ve gone out with a camera and caught some sad things that reflect what I’m feeling at the time.
MJ: When you started doing street photography, I remember thinking that it would feel so out of my comfort zone to be in a space where people might feel taken-aback by my shooting. But your work always looks so comfortable! I wanted to talk to you about how your process works and how you got into this.
MW: My first real introduction to street photography was when I was living in London. I had heard about street photogrpahy and read cool books about it before living there. But it’s such a big place with tons of cool people and no one knows you. I could get infront of this person and take their photo, look like a creep - and I’m never going to see them again. I’m not ever going to hear about any sort of judgement they might have. When I first got out there I was nervous, but the more I pushed myself out of my comfort zone the easier it got. And even when I took a break and got back into it I had to build up that confidence again. Besides facial expressions, I’ve never had anyone ever really do something about it negatively.
MJ: At the end of the day, in public our lives are more or less recorded anyways.
MW: That’s it, and at the end of the day I could go and shoot 100 photos and only post 1. Most likely no one will see the captures but me.
MJ: How do you go about selecting a space to shoot in?
MW: I like to hang around areas with high human interaction. Especially in London, where there are lots of tourists. I like to think about photos that families on vacation might actually like and capture that. It’s kind of funny though because no one will have those vacation photos but me!
MJ: How long do you hang around an area to see what will happen?
MW: A long time sometimes. I’ve always been a people watcher. I go somewhere and sit down just to watch different folks. When you have a camera you can capture those things that are stimulating to your brain.
MJ: What does your processing look like if you aren’t sharing, do you still edit?
MW: My process is kind of weird. I’ll take a bunch of photos and select the ones I really like, put them in lightroom and edit them. Sometimes just a few. Then I’ll sit on them for a few months and look and then something that I didn’t think was very good before, a few months down the road is amazing. Sort of a mother goose sitting on her eggs thinking “we’re going to hatch one day, whenever I decide to check back on them”.
MJ: If I could make a graphic for you it would be you as a mother goose sitting on her eggs and waiting, haha.
MW: Just sitting on rolls of film, hahah.
MJ: What does your process look like if you aren’t sure what to do with the scene?
MW: This happened to me on my last trip to New York, I shot that whole trip on film. New York City is really dark and shady and a lot of the time I was guess working with the lighting. Even now there’s a lot of times that I’m not sure how the work will turn out. That’s why I really like film. I can invision what it will look like but I actually don’t know. That’s the mystery that I like about it. A lot of the times the shots turn out pretty decent. There’s really nothing like film sometimes. It’s so magical. The scene burns onto something and it’s physical. It still blows my mind, I am so passionate about it. And it’d there forever unless the negative is destroyed.
MJ: Are there photographers that inspire you?
MW: Yes, actually a Regina guy, Dustin Veitch. He’s on instagram as @FaultyFlipFlap. He’s very inspiring, I really like how lonely and desolate his photos are. I try to replicate that a bit when I’m stepping away from street photography. Another one is Joel Merawits. He did a lot of photos in the 60s and 70s. He travelled a lot and did street photography. This is probably my favourite era to look back on. Also there’s a photographer called Kurt Markus. He did photography back in the 80s and joined a ranch. He joined a ranch in the southern US and took photos of cowboys and ranches around his area.
MJ: What has been the most valuable education for you as it comes to photography?
MW: Honestly, watching YouTube videos. I think it’s such a waste of money to pay for photography training when people are posting things for free. There’s like way too much information out there for free. That’s what I’ve learned. I’ve never done a photography course so I’m sure it would be beneficial. I just have a hard time justifying paying someone unless it’s one on one and we’re going out and shooting. I just don’t need to sit in a classroom and learn about the rules of thirds. There’s a lot about studio lighting that I’d like to know more about.
MJ: Are there any projects that you’re working on right now that you can talk about?
MW: No projects right now but I am going to be working on something soon. I came up with this idea for a project that I think I’m going to call “Rural”. I literally thought this up when I was drinking and ran it by a few people later. I don’t know if it’ll take me a few months or a year. But I want to go to rural areas and photograph people, do portraits, take video about their lifestyles. People that are on the fringe of society that you wouldn’t hear about. I want to get a lifetstyle shoot of what their life looks like and give them a voice.
Above are a few of Matt’s favourite images of his own work. I’d have to agree.
Vancouver, BC.
