Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Evearitt.
Hi Matthew, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I fell in love with photography and video-making through skateboarding and making movies with friends. Looking back, it was really the simple act of just making things I thought looked cool with them that led me to where I am today. I would take my dad’s camera when I was young and just bring it everywhere I went. We would make kung fu movies in the backyard, made stop motion films with my GI Joes, and just take photos of skate tricks at the school yard. I honestly loved the whole process of shooting and editing and showing it to everyone afterward. I moved to New York then and got my first real digital camera, and started getting gigs with local studios and events. I never really thought that I could do anything full time with it though – I was teaching at the time, and just kept shooting things on the side, and in some ways maybe even stopped just shooting for the joy of it. When a non-photography related professional opportunity came up for me in the Bay Area after a decade in NYC though, I went – and I kind of just had to reinvent myself. With no connections and no friends, I just went back to shooting for fun and making friends with skaters around me and shooting with them. I was going on adventures in the city and at the mountains and ocean, shooting landscapes and looking at the world in a different way too. That kind of experimentation led to rediscovering the artistic process for myself, and just breathed a new creative life in me that brought me to shooting things with partners that really dug my work, and now I’m professionally filming and photographing as a career – and still loving doing it everyday.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think the bumps in the road along the way were all part of the journey. I think losing my creative energy and not taking my art seriously while I was teaching was a major hurdle – I really regret letting my art get away from me for a period of time. I didn’t think I could ever do what I loved to creatively as a career, and I had to find that out by just getting back to the joy of shooting things for fun and looking at the world differently, and then realize that ‘hey, people like my stuff on Instagram!’ I think Instagram in the early days was really a platform where artists could share more freely and not be concerned about an algorithm burying their work – and that’s where a lot of artists were being discovered and sought out for work. Fortunately, that’s when my artistic journey was kind of starting to pick up, and it’s led to me working with some pretty cool organizations and at some cool places. All the bumps in the road along the way just brought me where I want to be.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a photographer/cinematographer, and I guess I’m known for my landscape/cityscape street photography. I’ve heard from so many people that they love different aspects of my work, like the community based imagery or the aerial work I’ve done, or just the skateboard stuff I make. It’s hard for me to pinpoint a ‘specialty’ because I love to do all of things and I can’t stay in just one category ever. I think that might be what sets my work apart too, because it’s evolving all the time and changing – but there’s a certain style that is a throughline in all of it.
What matters most to you?
What matters to me most is to just always staying hungry to make things. Even in the moments where I’m feeling stuck creatively or not motivated, I force myself to make something so I can work out my artistic muscles. Creativity is kind of like working out that way – you have to make yourself run or lift or stretch all the time so that you can keep yourself in shape, even when you don’t want to. Definitely give yourself rest time too – but stay on a path that lets you be healthy, creatively (and physically!).
Pricing:
- Photography/Videography – Rates vary! Just contact me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://beholdcreators.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/beholdcreators
