Double Exposure Photography, With Matt Terrell
Weekly Inspiration
This week, Michelle is inspired by community festivals. When you’re working overtime to make your dreams come true, it can be hard to remember to pause, enjoy your surroundings, and appreciate your neighbors. Thankfully, Atlanta is chock-full of quaint weekend festivals that come to life with locals enjoying artist markets, live music performed by local musicians, and incredible food. Nothing refreshes your creativity and injects you with inspiration quite like the wellspring of joy and positivity that is a neighborhood gathering. Sending big love to everyone who makes these community festivals possible!
What’s inspiring you? Comment below for a chance to be featured on an upcoming episode of The Cultured Podcast!
Digging at the roots of double exposure photography with Matthew Terrell
Photographer, artist and writer Matthew Terrell joins Michelle for an exploration of double exposure photography. Matt is a jack of many trades but this go-round, we focus on his ethereal and vintage-inspired double exposure photography.
Remember those 35 mm rolls of film that you used to take to your local drugstore to get developed? Matt manages to take those rolls of film and a 1979 Pentax K1000 camera that he’s had since he was 16 to capture ethereal images of intimacy, nature and no-holds-barred self-expression.
Matt’s work summons a dream-like nostalgia from its viewers, not only because his film is double exposed, but also because he purposely only photographs timeless subjects and objects, freeing his work from the distraction of time.
Matt delves into how he uses his art to shed light on problems in society. He regales us with the story of how a sculpture he created to increase AIDS awareness for the Center for Civil and Human Rights ended up taking on a life of its own.
Michelle and Matt discuss the kryptonite that is the pursuit of perfection for an artist and how, in the end, you have to just let go and give the art the chance to develop and become what it was always meant to be.
Through their conversation that feels more like two old friends catching up, Michelle and Matt explore the idea of being a hypercreative (a person who feels the constant urge to express themselves in many forms) and how to expertly insert your personal experiences into your art.
About Matthew Terrell, Double Exposure Photographer, Artist and Writer
Matthew Terrell writes, photographs, and creates videos in the fine city of Atlanta. Terrell’s work can be found regularly on VICE, Huffington Post, ArtsATL, Nerve, and Burnaway Magazine where he covers subjects such as the queer art in the South, media culture, and gay mens’ health issues. He is a co-founding member of Legendary Children, Atlanta’s premier queer art collective. Terrell received an Idea Capital Grant in 2014 for his project “Sweet Tea: The Story of the Queer South;” Terrell is writing and photographing drag performers changing Atlanta’s queer community. He has been an artist in residence at Djerassi, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Serenbe, and The Studios of Key West. In 2014, Terrell found a forgotten fragment of a Keith Haring mural at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta—it was his most proud achievement. Terrell received his BFA and MFA in writing from Savannah College of Art and Design; he also has an MA in communications from Georgia State University. Terrell currently works as the communications director for Dad’s Garage Theatre, where he helps to publicize a bunch of knucklehead improvisational actors.
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