Matthew Conheady

President & Founder

My role at NYFalls.com

I handle day-to-day operations of the website; including, but not limited to: development, photography, copywriting, research, trying to figure out why something doesn't work, fighting spam, answering questions, looking at pretty pictures in our community forum, and most importantly, paying for everything.

Photos of Me

Matt on other websites

Facebook

Flickr (I don't really like it)

Best shot

My current best shot is from the Renaissance Festival in Sterling, NY, taken in the summer of 2010.
I visited for the shot, snapped once, and came away with a scene that perfectly demonstrated the interaction of the talent of the show and the guests.

Want to contact Matt?

If you have questions for Matt that pertain to this website, the purchasing or use of his work, or just because you already know him but forgot his e-mail address, you can e-mail him here: mconheady@gmail.com

Do not contact Matt for questions and tips about specific locations, cameras, shooting, traveling and the like.
The best place to ask about these things is to search our community board and post in the appropriate place there.

Favorite photographers

Galen Rowell - Nature Photographer - Website

William Henry Jackson - Nature Photographer, Painter, Conservationist - Collection

David Muench - Nature Photographer - Website

John Shaw - Nature Photographer, Educator - Website

Favorite place to shoot

In New York State
Grimes Glen, Naples, NY

Outside of NY
Yosemite National Park, CA

Favorite things to shoot

Kids and family are my subjects of choice. I would quit my job for a quality career photographing kids in a studio.

Photography gear

Cameras: Olympus E-5; Olympus E-620; Olympus E-30; Olympus E-510; Olympus C-8080; Canon S95; Canon SD850is

Lenses: ZD 12-60mm; ZD 50mm; ZD 50-200mm; ZD 70-300mm; ZD 7-14mm

Hobbies

Collecting ingenious or outrageous advertisements

Collecting vintage postcards of Upstate NY parks

Video gaming

iPod and iPhone... I love tinkering with them

Cooking

Eating candy (yes, that's a hobby)

Testimonials

"The one thing that would surprise most visitors to NYFalls.com, is that Matt created and maintains this website, all in his spare time. After chatting with him, even briefly, it is resoundingly clear that his motivation comes from the sincere desire to provide concise, accurate and free information to anyone interested in exploring the beautiful resources NY State has to offer both its residents and its visitors.

In addition, he gives freely of his time to help community members become better photographers by organizing group outings, concocting instructional photo challenges, and answering questions from those with a developing interest in photography."

- Kelly Lucero - The Garden Path Photography

"Upstate New York has never looked better than through the eyes of one of this generation's best nature photographers, Matt Conheady. His knowledge of photography and his eye for natural beauty will provide breathtaking images of New York’s natural wonders for years to come. "

- Jeff Gerew - C7 Photography

"I discovered Matt's photography about four years ago when I first started learning about landscape and nature photography. I had just bought some camera equipment and Photoshop and learned many techniques and tricks through his site. Matt showed me beginner and advanced ways to create photos both in camera and post-processing. My photography quickly advanced throughout the last few years with his help and I started my own sports and event photography business."

- Chris Cecere - Rochester CC Photography

"If you love waterfall and nature photography, Matt's nyfalls.com is a website you will get hooked on! He has very professional looking photos and a cool website design. He also has a forum where members can show their photos and share information to improve their photography or get directions to certain NY waterfalls. Matt is very helpful whenever I have any photography or marketing questions."

- Nick Peeff - Escaping to Paradise

Tell people about Me

Background

I was born in Rochester, NY, where I grew up, attended public schools, and then studied Environmental Sciences at Nazareth College. My background is in stream ecology, ethics, and evolution.

I currently work as Production Manager at Advanced Language Translation Inc., in downtown Rochester. I am not married and have no children.

In my free time, I read textbooks on various subjects, including geology, anthropology, and other branches of science. I also enjoy playing video games, broadening my music collection, watching independent and foreign films, and writing jokes for both an online comic strip and a speechwriting service.

I am a self-taught photographer, and I have read over 50 books on photography. I have been using PhotoShop since version 3, long before I ever owned a camera. I bought my first camera so I could take photos of my nephew when he was born in 2003. In 2005 I photographed scenes from Stonybook State Park and then Grimes Glen and wanted to post the galleries online. Realizing that most people don't want to see mediocre photos from some random stranger, I decided to improve on my photography and also include guides to these parks so people could go there and try photographing these scenes themselves.

NYFalls.com was born in May of 2006 and launched with a page on Bucktail Falls, Reynold's Gully and Hemlock Lake. The galleries were minimal, the information was lacking, and I barely could get the website's code together. Today, I extensively research each location, take hundreds of photos, sample stereo audio, record HD video, and spend weeks writing articles and building galleries. Why? Because these special places deserve to be understood and protected. And the information should be available to everyone... for free.

I started selling my photos online a few years ago. I sell a few each month. Nothing to retire from my corporate job with. Maybe in 5 years or so, I'll take on photography full-time.

My thoughts on photography

On the topic of Black and White...

I don't like it. Well... I don't like how it's being used recently. A lot of people nowadays will take a sub par photograph, de-saturated so it's grayscale, and call it a work of art. A lot of people see black-and-white imagery and think "art." Black-and-white tones are now used as a cliché to show that an image is on a higher artistic level than it actually is.

All too often I see people on Flickr take a mediocre color shot converted to grayscale and all of a sudden people start gawking over how great and artistic it looks. It's not like the photographer originally composed for black-and-white. No, they took it with their digital camera, which captured all the color, and most likely they saw the colors were off when they finally checked it on the monitor, so they took all the color out of it. All of a sudden it looks like they're an art student working these photos out of a lab at the local college. It doesn't surprise me that most people, when creating black-and-white photography, de-saturate color images. This practice rarely demonstrates the richness of tone that true black-and-white photos can contain. In the digital age, a proper black and white conversion is needed. A proper vision and capture technique is even better!

Don't get me wrong; black and white can be done well, extremely well. Composing for contrast; forgetting color and looking solely at tone; using color-blocking filters and proper channel isolating techniques can all yield excellent monotone results for digital images. I just don't like the "de-saturate for art" technique that seems to be the consensus out there. It's just way too easy to remove color and is more challenging to get the color right. People should recognize that.

HDR photography...

I use it regularly to overcome the limitations of the technology and usually the weather. As a landscape photographer, I'm often confronted with less than ideal lighting conditions. I can't really afford the cost and time to make long trips, hike miles, to return to locations just to get the right lighting. So when I can, I bracket my shots to capture the darkest shadows, and sun-drenched highlights, and combine them using a variety of techniques, High Dynamic Range Images being one of them. My recent HDR work has been done very close to the output of a normal range image. This is what I'm striving for.

The overtly detailed, super saturated clouds-of-chaos that plague Flickr and other online galleries are something I would like to avoid. They may look interesting and perhaps sharp and detailed as small online thumbnails, but at larger sizes and in print, they are a mess. Barely useful beyond a curiosity. Hopefully as camera technology improves, I can leave my HDR techniques behind.

Self-editing...

One of the greatest skills a photographer can develop, is the ability to self-edit. To know which photos to show, and which ones to discard. Often I see people dump whole memory cards online and let others sort through them. This isn't going to win many followers. Even posting images online is a form of publishing, and if you want to impress, publish only your best.

One technique I have is to grade my images on a scale of 1 to 10 when I'm building a gallery. I perhaps make adjustments to the top half. Then I make the decision at the end to take only the top 3-4 grades, depending on the quantity I need, and publish them. When all else fails, I look at the photo and ask myself... can just anyone take this photo? If so, I'll leave it out.

I actually have several sets of photos from waterfalls, parks, and lakes that I have yet to write pages for. Why? I just don't feel they are good enough. When I get a chance to take photos that will impress, then I'll work on posting a page. Otherwise, I'm patient; I can wait. Just checking... I have maybe 50,000 photos just waiting.

What a nice camera...

I'm pretty modest about my work. I really don't think I am the best or near the top (at least not yet), but one thing that gets me every time, is when people take a look at my work, and the first thing they say is "Wow, you must have a nice camera!"

I like to think that I do, but really it's not even considered a professional camera. I'm not doubting that the camera makes a difference, because I certainly want a better one. The reason why I have great shots is because I bust my ass to learn photography and get out there when it's raining or drive 8 hours to take these shots, work on them in the lab for hours and make them presentable. I just wish people would recognize that first.

Weddings...

I don't do weddings. I just don't have the experience. So many times I have seen couples hire amateurs to cover their most important event. I've seen people use consumer-level cameras shooting directly into the sun, with dirty lenses, no external lighting, no backup system ,and no clue what they are doing. And they are charging a thousand bucks for this?! There are people out there that get a fancy new Canon Rebel or whatever and then all of a sudden they are putting other people’s memories in their hands by hiring out wedding photography services without having an ounce of experience.

I have fixed countless photos for friends and family because the images they got back from their wedding photographers were just junk. And every time it amazes me that people would have the nerve to charge money for their inexperience, just because they can take a few decent photos of their own puppy or little sister. Weddings are very demanding jobs that require a lot of knowledge of tradition, much creativity and the ability to deal with the many things that can go wrong. The end product will come under high scrutiny and will become an heirloom within the family. It has to be perfect. Couples seeking a wedding photographer should get one with wedding experience--plenty of it--and the ability to post-process and publish within a timely manner. There are just too many wedding photographers out there that should be ashamed of themselves for taking such jobs. Identify them and avoid them.