Shaky arms don't stop gifted eye for photography.

March 19, 2009 12:21 PM

Thirteen year old Matt Milligan is a gifted photographer despite suffering from Cerebral Palsy. He uses a monopod, or his parents stabilizing his arms, to help minimize distortion from his shaky arms.[via.]
posted by grapefruitmoon (14 comments total)

The pictures are lovely. Whatever Matt's physical challenges are they have not affected his sense of aesthetics or eye for composition.
posted by angiep at 12:47 PM on March 19, 2009

Too bad he won't be able to make a living at it.
posted by Caduceus at 12:48 PM on March 19, 2009

Everybody should use a monopod.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:32 PM on March 19, 2009

Monopods are boring. I prefer cephalopods. Er, bendible multi-pods (or you could buy a GorillaPod).
posted by filthy light thief at 1:48 PM on March 19, 2009

Mario? is that you?
posted by cmyr at 2:42 PM on March 19, 2009

Caduceus: "Too bad he won't be able to make a living at it."

Why not?
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:37 PM on March 19, 2009

I think it was a reference to the previous post.
posted by gene_machine at 3:46 PM on March 19, 2009

Oh, lovely.

Hey, wildlife photography buffs - doesn't National Geographic sponsor a highly-touted, international wildlife photography competition every year? I seem to recall there being a youth division, and I bet he'd have a shot.
posted by bettafish at 5:36 PM on March 19, 2009

He really does great work.
posted by mike3k at 6:13 PM on March 19, 2009

Why not?

I don't think that this was a ping at the photographer. I read it as "making a living off of solely photography is challenging." And I don't know if you have noticed, but newspaper and magazine work is drying up. That means there are a ton of unemployed, experienced photojournalists who might be now considered the competition in the field of free-lance wildlife photography.

But yes, I agree, the subject of the post does good work.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 6:55 PM on March 19, 2009

Hmmm.

What's that term where a disabled person would use an ouija board type set up to communicate? And the carer would *ahem* stabilize their arms? Facilitation or enabling or something like that?
posted by uncanny hengeman at 10:07 PM on March 19, 2009

I wonder why he doesn't use image stabilization and/or a high shutter speed...? He's a great photographer, though.
posted by bugmuncher at 11:23 PM on March 19, 2009

Image stabilization (or IS, and also known as vibration reduction or VR) is meant to counter the shaking due to normal muscle tremors - I have known a couple of people with cerebral palsy over the years and my impression is that their movements would totally overwhelm any IS system.

High shutter speeds demand wide apertures (resulting in shallow depth of field), lots of light (not always available), or high ISO sensitivity in the sensor (which results in more noise in the image). It also precludes shots like this or this.
posted by kcds at 5:51 AM on March 20, 2009

It also precludes shots like this or this.

Not really. Long exposure shots require a tripod unless you are purposely looking to shakey-cam blurred elements.
posted by basicchannel at 1:20 PM on March 20, 2009