Curtis Reliford mesmerizes the crowd with an impassioned speech about prejudice, outrage and love.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Recreating Fuseli’s ‘The Nightmare’ with stuffed animal and chihuahua
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The incredible Cuban singer Yanet Valdés
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Siri, a high school senior, on the road from where she’s been to what comes next.
![Portrait of Siri, a high school senior, in Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
A prisoner’s view at the Château de Duras in southwest France
![A prisoner's view at the Château de Duras, Lot-et-Garonne, France | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The majestic dome in the cathedral to commerce that is Paris' Galeries Lafayette.
![The stupendous stained glass dome at Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Eloise wants to know what you’re going to do about it.
![Portrait of intensity, and Eloise | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Ready to ride.
![Ready to ride, part of a series for Safe Routes Partnership | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Joy.
![Swing set joy, part of a series for Safe Routes Partnership | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
A shell fragment thwarts the gravity of the receding tide and streaks like a comet up the beach.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
At the cornerstone of Eliot Hall, now and then.
![Stonemasons rough in the cornerstone of Eliot Hall before the actual ceremony in May, 1912. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Stephanie Sprinkle, after cleaning the press at Kelley Fox Wines.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Winemaker Kelley Fox tastes visitors through her ethereal wines.
![Winemaker Kelley Fox tastes visitors through her Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc under a canopy of ancient cedars, Gaston, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
A natural cathedral of Pinot Noir near Yamhill, Oregon
![A natural cathedral of Pinot Noir in a vineyard near Yamhill, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Head over heels about his best friend
![Head over heels about your best friend, Portland, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Racing past the crowd.
![Racing past the crowd in the middle leg of a 3x800. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Kelley Fox prepares a compost tea for her vineyard
![Winemaker Kelley Fox prepares a biodynamic compost tea for her rows at Maresh Vineyard | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Andrea Nakayama, entrepreneur and advocate for the healing potential of nutrition
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Portland City Councilor Nick Fish, beginning his re-election run.
![Portland City Councilor Nick Fish, beginning his re-election run. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Birds of a feather: Violet and the peacock
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The actor Amelia Hillery as the sun sets on an autumn afternoon
![The actor Amelia Hillery as the sun sets on an autumn afternoon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Sunrise kisses Mt Adams, Goldendale
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The 2017 solar eclipse dons a diamond ring
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Waiting for the 2017 solar eclipse
![Waiting for the 2017 solar eclipse on Grand Island, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The never-too-much color guard at the Pride Parade, Portland OR
![The color guard at the Pride Parade, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Susan Davis is listening. Always listening.
![Susan Davis is listening. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Susan Davis, podcasting icon
![Susan Davis, podcasting icon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The audio and the ecstasy of Susan Davis, producer
![The audio and the ecstasy of Susan Davis, radio and podcast producer | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Jessica Boudreaux, Summer Cannibals
![Jessica Boudreaux, lead guitar and vocals, Summer Cannibals, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Strike: poster for International Women's Day
![Strike: poster for International Women's Day | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Amelia prepares for Juliet
![Amelia Hillery, a talented young actress preparing for the role of Juliet in an unconventional staging of Romeo and Juliet | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Launch here: on the shores of Odell Lake
![Launch here: on the shores of Odell Lake, Oregon, night | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Heavy snowfall and receding trees, Odell Lake
![Heavy snowfall and receding trees, Odell Lake Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Suprematism comes to Odell Lake
![Sheets of ice fractured on Odell Lake, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Sheets of ice breaking apart on Odell Lake
![Sheets of ice breaking apart on Odell Lake, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Snow covered street after a blizzard, Portland
![Snow covered street after a blizzard, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Kara Brennan, Orbit In
![Kara Brennan lounges in the Sinatra suite, Orbit In!, Palm Springs, California | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Alice leaps into the future: for the BTA Alice Awards
![Alice leaps into the future: for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Alice Awards | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The air is scented with stillness – of surging cable long cooled, of bearing grease muffled with dust – until the power comes on...
![In the warehouse, a femme fatale emerges from the darkness | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
What her now-husband gave to court her instead of earrings
![Portrait of the perfect gift: a cow skull, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The incredible flying artist George Wehn
![The incredible flying artist George Wehn | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Odell Lake, Oregon, sunrise
![Odell Lake, Oregon, sunrise | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
The steely Black Pine Mountains
![The Black Pine Mountais, at the border between Idaho and Utah | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Next stop, Snowville. Definitely.
![Snowville up ahead, border between Utah and Idaho | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Big Four Pedestrian Bridge, night
![Big Four Pedestrian Bridge, Kentucky and Indiana, night | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
A first-time archer focuses on the target with everything she's got.
![A first time archer draws her bow, focuses on the target, and lets loose. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
An actual battened hatch, Key West
![Battened hatch, Key West Florida | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
Old ships meet new, Key West
![Old ships meet the new, Key West Florida | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- At a rally in Portland protesting the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Curtis Reliford mesmerizes the diverse crowd with an impassioned speech about prejudice, outrage, and love. He’s been traveling the country in his “Peace Train” on a “journey of kindness” for the last 16 years. It's past time we all climbed on board.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- What do you get when you cross a Stay Home Order, cabin fever, and someone who drapes so elegantly in an ivory crepe empire waist dress? If you guessed “recreate Fuseli’s ‘The Nightmare’ with a stuffed animal and an ancient chihuahua,” boy, how’d you do that? That’s correct!
Note the heirloom-quality gold brooch, which my friend proudly fashioned from cardboard and a few dabs of acrylic paint. She wears it for Buddy (her chihuahua), who while a fussy eater and a little drooly, is more of a love demon than a nightmare, even Photoshopped to three times his size.![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The Santería religion – a vibrant blend of the Yoruba religion of West Africa and Roman Catholicism – is everywhere in Cuba and grounded in communion with orishas (roughly, saints) through song. Wearing the white of an iyabó initiate into the religion, the talented Yanet Valdés pours her heart into a transcendent version of "Round Midnight" by the equally talented pianist Alejandro Meroño.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Siri, a high school senior, on the road from where she’s been to the adventure, promise – and traffic – of what comes next.
![Portrait of Siri, a high school senior, in Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- A prisoner’s view at the Château de Duras in southwest France. Marguerite Donnadieu wrote her first novel here, adopting Duras as her nom de plume in homage. And maybe even literally here, in this crumbling cage, when the words didn’t come and this was exactly where she was anyway, in a prison of language that despite its bars, offered a vision of escape where those same words could lead.
![A prisoner's view at the Château de Duras, Lot-et-Garonne, France | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- France’s soaring cathedrals inspire both insignificance and awe before the awesome, fractal majesty of the divine. The Galeries Lafayette is one of them; its denomination just happens to be commerce.
![The stupendous stained glass dome at Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Eloise wants to know what the hell you’re going to do about it.
Well?
I'm sorry, are you still here?![Portrait of intensity, and Eloise | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Thanks, Dad.
Part of a series I shot for Safe Routes Partnership, a national non-profit working to improve the health, safety and well-being of kids.![Ready to ride, part of a series for Safe Routes Partnership | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Joy.
How do we get back here more often?
Part of a series for Safe Routes Partnership, a national non-profit focused on getting kids of all ages more active and healthy.![Swing set joy, part of a series for Safe Routes Partnership | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Sometimes it’s less about moving forward than resisting the pull to retreat. A shell fragment thwarts the gravity of the receding tide and streaks like a comet up the beach.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- An X-ray view into not only a building, but its past: stonemasons rough in the cornerstone of Eliot Hall before the actual ceremony in May, 1912. And is that Buster Keaton supervising?
![Stonemasons rough in the cornerstone of Eliot Hall before the actual ceremony in May, 1912. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- After cleaning the mighty press countless times during harvest at Kelley Fox Wines, Stephanie Sprinkle had made it her fawning puppy.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- On a break from harvest, under a canopy of ancient cedars, winemaker Kelley Fox tastes visitors through her ethereal Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc.
![Winemaker Kelley Fox tastes visitors through her Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc under a canopy of ancient cedars, Gaston, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- To a winemaker like me, a vineyard is a cathedral, a place you go to touch the divine – and if you know what you’re doing, put it in a bottle. So when I walked the aisles of this lovely vineyard outside Yamhill, Oregon, I was looking at the details of how it was farmed, for sure. But also... something else: signs it might be the kind of special place that makes a transcendent Pinot Noir. You know, something about this place gives me that feeling...
![A natural cathedral of Pinot Noir in a vineyard near Yamhill, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Do you remember being as head over heels about anything as much as this?
Yeah, that was transcendent, wasn’t it?![Head over heels about your best friend, Portland, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The action isn’t always where the crowd is looking. My godson races past them in the middle leg of the 3x800.
![Racing past the crowd in the middle leg of a 3x800. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- In the bleak light of one late winter morning, winemaker Kelley Fox sits before a glass door overlooking the vineyard and begins to stir. It's a biodynamic compost tea, and she'll "dynamize" it for at least an hour before she loads it into an old brass backpack sprayer and walks her rows of Maresh Vineyard, applying a little to every vine. Eight months later, the vines will return the favor with vibrant, utterly distinctive fruit that could only have come from that much care.
![Winemaker Kelley Fox prepares a biodynamic compost tea for her rows at Maresh Vineyard | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Andrea Nakayama is a functional nutritionist, entrepreneur, and passionate advocate for the healing potential of nutrition at both a personal and clinical level. Warm, gracious, and professional, she was a pleasure to photograph – I can only imagine how great a teacher she must be.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- In addition to creating the foundational message strategy for Portland City Councilor Nick Fish’s bid for re-election, I shot the initial round of images for the campaign, including this portrait. Nick’s life-long commitment to public service is pretty inspiring, and I think the calm resolve that drives him comes through powerfully in this shot.
So how'd he do? Despite a strong challenger, Nick earned a resounding 61.8% of the vote in the primary, well past the 50% threshold that would have forced a runoff in November. I’m really proud to have been part of the team that helped get him there.![Portland City Councilor Nick Fish, beginning his re-election run. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Birds of a feather: Violet and the peacock.
What do you think she sees?![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The actor Amelia Hillery, unfurled on a bed of brittle leaves as the sun sets on an autumn afternoon.
![The actor Amelia Hillery as the sun sets on an autumn afternoon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Sunrise kisses the top of Mt. Adams near Goldendale on our last grape run of the winemaking season. Man, I love this time of year, and I love that road trips into this beautiful country are part of it.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The 2017 solar eclipse dons a diamond ring on its way out the door. Never having shot an eclipse (and may never again!), I could only guess at the settings and gear I'd need – where we were, the totality only lasted about a minute, so I didn't have a lot of time to fool around with settings, and of course, I also wanted to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event, too! Luckily, my guesses were damn close.
![| © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Waiting for the the 2017 solar eclipse from a farm on Grand Island, Oregon. Keen observers may recognize Don Yerian, the draft horse whisperer in other images I've shot, on whom Devo Kraftwerk eclipse glasses look decidedly out of place.
![Waiting for the 2017 solar eclipse on Grand Island, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- I've never been in a parade, but I can't imagine how tough it must be to give everyone along the way a good performance block after block, hour after hour. Not this fine gentleman: the amount of energy and passion he put into, well, his pride was incredible – and inspiring.
![The color guard at the Pride Parade, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Radio and podcast producer Susan Davis is listening. Always listening.
![Susan Davis is listening. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Susan Davis, podcasting coach, producer... and icon! As you can probably tell from this image, yeah, this was a really fun shoot. The passion and intensity @cutmymic brings to her work was crystal clear throughout the session, but buoying it was a healthy goofiness and willingness to experiment that must make collaborating with her on a podcast (if not a photo shoot) incredibly rewarding. I mean, who would you rather make something with?
![Susan Davis, podcasting icon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The audio and the ecstasy: one last shot from my portrait session with Susan Davis, podcast guru, public radio producer, and champion of the human story. I asked her to close her eyes, try to forget I was there, and imagine she was listening to something beautiful and let it take her somewhere else. Maybe it was a piece of music, but more likely, I'll bet it was a simple, quintessentially human moment, a heartbeat or signal in all the noise of our lives. And maybe it was *only* a moment, maybe just the telling pause in someone's voice that clears your attention of any other audio as you now are listening, truly listening, to nothing else, the tightening timbre as they edge toward something deeply felt, a memory of an experience that changed things for them forever, the noble struggle for control before emotion crests the dam and their voice catches. That moment of... connection, with another human being. The kind of audio that is her life's work, in other words. This is where it took her
![The audio and the ecstasy of Susan Davis, radio and podcast producer | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Jessica Boudreaux, lead guitar and vocals, Summer Cannibals, Portland Oregon
![Jessica Boudreaux, lead guitar and vocals, Summer Cannibals, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Strike: a poster I designed for International Women's Day, featuring the actor and director Amelia
![Strike: poster for International Women's Day | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- A portrait of Amelia Hillery, a talented young actor preparing for the role of Juliet in an unconventional staging of Romeo and Juliet.
![Amelia Hillery, a talented young actress preparing for the role of Juliet in an unconventional staging of Romeo and Juliet | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The sign says "Launch here," but to where? Back to earth? It sure looks awful far away from here, on the frigid shores of an icy lake on a distant planet.
![Launch here: on the shores of Odell Lake, Oregon, night | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- I strapped on snowshoes and set out into the storm. Snow fell harder, then harder still, and every step away from the cabin seemed to take me farther from dimension and color. I reached a clearing, and looking up into the trees gathered around me in the silent rumble of snowfall, I was in an old photograph, water-stained and fading back into nothingness.
![Heavy snowfall and receding trees, Odell Lake Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Suprematism comes to Odell Lake as sheets of ice fracture into geometrical forms.
![Sheets of ice fractured on Odell Lake, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- At the water’s edge, the edge is frayed, a blast of frosted glass frozen in time, shattering out into the dark. The wind sings: walk with me, don’t be afraid, out upon the stones I’ve laid – I’ll show you where the real lake lies. But those are lies a moment tells, the lie I tell with frozen time until the lake sighs, and ripples liquify the edge.
![Sheets of ice breaking apart on Odell Lake, Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- We had a "light dusting" here in Portland, so I went out around midnight, set up my tripod, and opened the shutter. It was like walking into the hall of the mountain king.
![Snow covered street after a blizzard, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Interior designer Kara Brennan lounges in the Sinatra suite, Orbit In!, Palm Springs, California
![Kara Brennan lounges in the Sinatra suite, Orbit In!, Palm Springs, California | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- For the BTA Alice Awards, an image of Alice leaping into the future and a new organizational mission: advocating not just for bikes, but for walking and transit as well. It was a dramatic and risky move considering its core membership of avid bicycle advocates (understandably skeptical about diluting the organization's focus), so I positioned the BTA's new bike-walk-transit focus as an amplification, taking the BTA 'to the power of three.' Along with a core event brand identity, I created posters, a program and a slideshow anchored by dynamic images symbolizing an organization in motion.
![Alice leaps into the future: for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Alice Awards | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Warehouses, shoulder to shoulder like a line up, fade into oblivion beyond the last faltering streetlight’s gaze. The steel padlock seizes, numb as your fingers working the reluctant key. Inside, the door’s weary creak describes a vast space you cannot see. The dead air is scented with stillness – of power cable long cooled, of bearing grease muffled with dust – distant echoes of a human hand long quiet.
Your eyes fumble in the darkness, searching for scale and substance, and after a moment, pallid walls begin to lift out of the gloom, leaving behind a grim council of breakers brooding their latent might.
And something else: wefted through the shadows, a single thread of purpose, and just before you understand that it is perfume, it has wrapped itself around your will and the lights come on.![In the warehouse, a femme fatale emerges from the darkness | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- This old guy has been hanging on the wall since Annabeth’s now-husband gave it to her in lieu of earrings in the early days of their courtship (worked like a charm, obviously!). It seemed to both of us the perfect final shot of the session: the end of one thing that really means the beginning of another.
![Portrait of the perfect gift: a cow skull, Portland Oregon | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- The incredible flying artist George Wehn.
![The incredible flying artist George Wehn | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- When I got out to the dock on Odell Lake just after dawn, I was the first person to break the snow – but not the first. This image was featured in Canon's official Instagram feed.
![Odell Lake, Oregon, sunrise | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- One light dusting of snow and winter’s steely monochrome numbs the Black Pine Mountains to iron.
![The Black Pine Mountais, at the border between Idaho and Utah | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Next stop, Snowville. Definitely.
![Snowville up ahead, border between Utah and Idaho | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Nothing like 20 degrees and a icy wind whistling down the Ohio River to get the playful, space age Big Four Pedestrian Bridge to yourself.
![Big Four Pedestrian Bridge, Kentucky and Indiana, night | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Her first time drawing a bow, she traces back and forth the imaginary line between the end of her arrow and the center of her target, and wills with all her might to connect the two. And then, away.
![A first time archer draws her bow, focuses on the target, and lets loose. | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- In Key West, the phrase ‘batten down the hatches’ is more than a figure of speech: from August through September, the specter of hurricane season looms over this tiny, exposed shoal 100 miles out into the Straits, casting a shadow that throws everything out of balance.
![Battened hatch, Key West Florida | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
- Before and after, then and now.
![Old ships meet the new, Key West Florida | © Matt Giraud Photography]()
