About Matt Hill

Among many things, I am a visual artist specializing in night photography, light painting and astro-landscapes. I am also a passionate educator.

Cut Paper Art

I make surreal forms from paper in 2D and 3D space. Some hang on the wall, some are sculptural and some are fashions. My method is to cut without sketching by making shapes the eventually relate to each other. I specifically have no intent when I begin a piece, and from that I learned the meaning of true freedom. Sounds corny, but it is very true. Try it sometime – you will thank me.

The genesis of my cut paper art was a handful of years ago, I had to make a decision about what to do with some powerful emotions I had surrounding a life-changing event. I channeled the anger I felt into making paper art, a pursuit decidedly analog and requiring my full attention. What was intended as therapy soon became a happy practice, and then joyful part of my life.

Night Photography

In my teens, my parents gave me my first SLR. I begged for years for a camera, and knew the smells and tools of my mother's darkroom. My Yashica went almost everywhere, including the local graveyard at night. I had a crazy idea about a tripod, a cable release and my Vivtar 283. The resulting photo was ghosted but sharp and sparked my imagination, especially when considering how to play with time dilation in a single exposure. 20-some years later I am still working on this concept, and enjoying every night out. 

Education

I've been doing public speaking for decades in the photo industry. Most recently, I have presented on creativeLIVE, at WPPI for five years, teaching photographers SEO, Web Marketing and social media. In addition to that, I teach Night Photography (NPy) workshops with my teaching partner, Gabriel Biderman (Ruinism.com). We teach some non-profit classes at Bannerman Castle, and others around New York City and the Hudson Valley.  Focusing on entropic areas and waterfronts, our students get a well-rounded education on basic and advanced NPy, lighting and portraiture at night.

And in late 2015, we launched National Parks at Night - a night photography workshop series taught exclusively in national parks, and only once per location.

Film and Video

I’m very experienced producing, creating and editing video and film. I have deep experience with lighting, and am actually not bad at recording sound (although there are plenty of people who are much better!). You can see many examples of this on the NPAN YouTube channel. I also edited a feature film, The Hunting. And other miscellany on personal YouTube channel. Since my passion is in education and creativity, you’ll find most of my content reflects this.

Collaborating on film and video is crucial, and it’s group projects like this that make me most proud:

Vocational

On top of all these wonderful passionate things, I am also the Director of Marketing Innovation at MAC Group. I create curiosity, meaningful communications and amazing customer experiences. Currently, I am head of social media. 

Graduate of Seth Godin's amazing altMBA program. 

Read my writings on business and leadership here in Medium.

I was fortunate to be part of the team that brought this to life. My role was Editor:

Thank You

I appreciate your visit to my website. Enjoy the art!