#DAYV MATTT

[dayvmattt]

chapter one of MANIFESTO

PSST!

Any resemblance to individuals ruling or ruled should be taken with a grain of salt. All of the events he has described herein that actually happened, actually happened, though he has made changes to the chronology and factuality.

Force majeure, bitches.

1 BISCUITS

Truth be told, this document isn’t a manifesto. It’s an unfinished manifesto. Certain demographics don’t seem to expect genuinely completed and tested products anymore. For example, people purchase and play video games still in their Alpha stages of development. The pharmaceutical companies put aside vast sums in the event that one of their rushed products, which usually treats a designer ailment, causes death or severe complications to both patients and investors. Everything is rushed now. Why should books be any different? Is this the first unfinished book you ever purchased? He doubts it.

He has, thus far, lived what he would characterize as an interesting life. Of course, his journey isn’t necessarily more or less interesting than yours, but it has been interesting enough. And to be sure, much of what he finds interesting about his own experience is similarly experienced by the vast majority of individuals who grew up middle class in big city Ontario. So, while interesting, his various experiences are not entirely unique.

He was born in Toronto. His pre-pubes-youth was youthy. When he was four or five he’d wake up well before Saturday morning cartoons were on TV to watch The AG Report; a weekly hour-long recap of the exciting world of Canadian agribusiness. He wasn’t obsessed with the world of agriculture; he just woke up early. He played Mario and Duck Hunt in his basement bedroom and met the gang from the neighborhood for road hockey and to get into mischief. He went through trading card and comic book phases, and he may have hit his brother in the head with a hammer. Life before high school was fine. 

High School is when social constructs and expectations from peers really kick into gear.

He attended Catholic school because his family did and he liked the idea of wearing a uniform. He just didn’t give a fuck about fashion. His peers could still, and did, judge him based on his shoes, backpack, hell, even lunch quality, but having to wear a uniform reduced the number of ways he could be judged; especially from afar.

During high school, he did not attend one dance and he didn’t go to his graduation ceremony.

High school seemed, at the time, to be so complicated (it was sexless and awkward) and often wretched, but looking back he is convinced that it was pretty god damn normal. He’s got plenty of stories to tell, that is true, but the stuff he wrote back then is embarrassingly bad. Really horrible. He is consoled by the fact that a lot of people are also embarrassed about what they wrote when they were young and angsty teens. That said, he does not regret writing when he was young.

With high school checked off the to-do list he moved to Ottawa to get university over with.

University is when resistance to social constructs and expectations from society really kick into gear.

During half a decade of university he smoked grass, read Marx, made music, shot street, hated everyone, and saw ghosts in line for the bathroom in the techno room. He also did some studying and graduated with a degree in Political Science, a minor in History, and a concentration in Comparative Politics. He didn’t attend his graduation ceremony.

University was, at the time, so lonely (it was sexless), but when he thinks back, that free and easy life was pretty good. There are plenty of stories to be told, that is true, but most of the stuff he wrote back then was straight up shite. Really horrible stuff. Idealistic hogwash heaped atop self-absorbed nonsense. He is consoled by the fact that he is sure this is true of many his age thinking about what was written when they were young adults slowly coming to terms with the fact that their entitled lives were soon entering a new and more demanding stage. He does not regret writing when he was a young adult.

With a new degree, he moved out of his apartment in Ottawa and back to his mom’s in Toronto.

There is something to be said about cocaine use among a number of his Toronto friends at the time, but, cocaine is really boring so let’s move on. Within a few weeks of being back in Toronto hanging out with pals who were coke curious, a friend of his called him up from Seoul, Korea.

He’d called to find out if he wanted to teach at the English academy he was employed at. His pitch was simple and his questions were few. He didn’t even ask for time to think about it. He figured, what the hell, and seven sleeps after speaking with his friend he was on a flight to Seoul and a life of expatitude. That was 2002.

The career that ‘should’ have materialized after university hadn’t materialized. Truth be told, moving to Korea offered him the opportunity to game the system for quite some time.

If you are content earning a couple grand a month, and it allows for a generally comfortable standard of living, it’s easy to just ignore a career. Nevertheless, more than a decade has passed and he is still always without savings and his debts aren’t any less daunting. He doesn’t necessarily lament the fact that he didn’t figure out a career path earlier in life, but there certainly are increasing levels of anxiety and stress that arise whenever he gives the subject some thought. Not everyone is a go-getter.

He is currently a stay at home dad who mildly enjoys it. If nothing changes his tombstone will read “Should have been more successful”.

It is certainly refreshing that more and more people are giving serious thought about drug policy and the negative effect that the criminalization of narcotics is having on society.

Egalitarian shifts cannot truly begin until society comes to a much more open attitude toward narcotics and resists the urge to wage war on them.

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[crossconnectmag]

Dayv Mattt: Interview with a Genius

Dayv Mattt sat down with The Chromatic Watch on a sunny Saturday to chat about his work, share some knowledge, and tell us about his new book, High Street Low Street Colombo.

Cross Connect: How do you think your photography’s changed over the years? What do you think you’ve gotten better at and what are you still working on?

Dayv Mattt: I really had to sit down and think about this one for a few minutes. I mean I think my photography has gotten better over the years, but I can’t really say why. I don’t think the way I shoot street photography has changed since I started doing it, but certainly the way I process the photos has, and I have worked hard to limit the number of shots I keep and publish. In my early days, I was like that annoying dude on instragram who posts every single shot. I am always willing to work on my post processing, and for my next project, I am contemplating a serious shift, but I have not figured out what that shift will be yet.

Cross Connect: How do you stand out as a photographer now that everyone with instagram and an iphone thinks they’re a photographer?

Dayv Mattt: Everyone with instragram and an iphone IS a photographer, but photography is like dubstep (or any genre of music). There is really good dubstep, and there is REALLY BAD dubstep. I like to think I stand out as a photographer because my photography is interesting to the people who look at it. To keep that music analogy going, there are people who really like dubstep, and there are people who really don’t. That said, there are some people who really like my style of photography, and people who don’t. I’m not doing this to stand out. I’m doing it because I’m proud of my work and I want people to see it.

Cross Connect: What is important to you to make a good photograph/what makes a good photograph?

Dayv Mattt: This may rub people the wrong way, but I am not a big fan of technical photography. For technical photographers, there is a checklist and a tried and tested method of getting that perfect shot. I would argue that a lot of these “perfect” photos are lacking in something much more important; personality. I’d rather shoot twenty frames of the same subject while I walk past it, than worry about settings to try and get that perfect frame right off the bat. Do you know what I mean?

Cross Connect: Have you ever felt that you hit a plateau in your work? And how did you rise above it? 

Dayv Mattt: I have felt that way a number of times, and what I realized was that I was getting into too much of a routine. Hitting up the same spots over and over. Doing too much of the same too often. It’s easy to fall into that trap as a street photographer. Especially if you are shooting at lunch, or during the morning and evening commutes. I rose above those moments by making sure that at least once a week I took a different route home, or planned to hit up a place I’d never been for a Saturday photo mission. If you’re feeling like a routine has you trapped, just head to your nearest bus stop, and get on a bus you have never been on before and ride that for an hour and walk home from wherever you get off.

Cross Connect: What type of photography do you like to look at? 

Dayv Mattt: I really enjoy (and envy) combat photography. If I could do combat photography, I would. It’s a dream of mine, but I know that I am not capable of doing it* so I stick to what I can do and try to enjoy it.

*I can’t do combat photography because I’m a pussy.

Cross Connect: What drew you to street photography initially? What has kept you interested in it? What do you like best about being a street photographer/shooting street?

Dayv Mattt: I love walking, and street photography gave me a reason to walk around. It just grew on me because when I got to Korea and didn’t really dig the club scene enough to shoot it, I figured I might as well do something with my camera so I gave it a try. It grew on me because being a judgmental introverted expat in Seoul is pretty lonely, so spending vast amounts of time out on the street shooting kept me a bit more sober that I would have been sitting at home. Cross Connect: What advice do you have for someone trying to start shooting street photography? 

Dayv Mattt: No one will care about your photos for a long time. Prepare yourself for that.

Cross Connect: You've published a book of your photography, High Street Low Street Seoul, and have a new book in the works. What are some lessons you've learned about publishing your work that you can share with other artists?

Dayv Mattt: I guess I would say, “know your audience”. My Seoul book sold much better than my Colombo book is selling. There was more enthusiastic demand for my Seoul book. No one seems to care much about my Colombo book. I’m not sure why that is, but I guess more people care about glitzy Seoul than they do about developing Colombo. The publishing part is easy. Getting people to care about your book and buy it is a little harder.

Cross Connect: Can you tell us about your new book?

Dayv Mattt: High Street Low Street Colombo explores the small streets and neighborhoods’ of Colombo, Sri Lanka. It provides the viewer with images of what the city is like for the average resident. In my opinion, it’s much better than my Seoul book because Colombo is so much smaller than Seoul and I was able to explore more of Colombo than I ever was able to in Seoul due to Seoul’s massive size.

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Big thanks to Dayv Mattt for this interview and for all the dope photography he posts on his site. You can find out more about his new book and support its creation on his Kickstarter page.

Be sure to stop by our Facebook page and tell us who to interview next!

[chromaticwatch]

Dayv Mattt Those Dayv Mattt darks, those Dayv Mattt colors, those Dayv Mattt characters, those Dayv Mattt captures—place and personality suspended spiritedly, warmly. He’s back in Korea, and he’s back with a new ebook: Seoul Supplement. We just picked up a copy. It’s awesome, you should check it out.

[crossconnectmag]

This Week's Featured Curator: The Chromatic Watch

You probably know him for his work scoping out Seoul, but for the past couple of years, Dayv Mattt's been in Sri Lanka, camera sweeping through Colombo’s neighborhoods, capturing its sights and people clearly, vibrant color and true faces and deep-ocean darks shading in the soul of the place and its people, subtly.

[gracefulme-blog]

I'm so excited!

I just ordered a copy of Tepsic, and I am so excited. Now I just need to get Dayv Mattt's book. Everyone should order one, too. Cause Dayv can show me beauty in something I was too ignorant to see in a place half way across the world. And Tepsic has dope ideas that he puts into action and created a sick magazine from the perspective of amazing artists.