Changes a brewin'!

We are taking the big step of rebranding the business. MarksPixels is becoming Studio Mark Emile. We have a new name, a new logo, a new website, a new blog, but one thing we have not changed is our commitment to excellence and insistence on providing the highest quality service possible.

I invite you to view our new blog studiomarkemile.blogspot.com That is going to be the active blog moving forward. See you there! We have many exciting new developments (no pun intended!) to share with you.

Lightroom Super Monday

Today I conducted a Super Monday PPA Continuing Education class on Adobe Lightroom at Jeff Dachowski's studio in Manchester, NH. This full day program introduced Lightroom as a workflow tool, and thoroughly dissected the operation of each module. Effort and time-saving tips such as the use of presets, templates, and customization were presented, and all of the attendees left with a solid foundation in the use of Lightroom. I invite any of today's attendees to email with any questions.

This was my first full day program, and I'm pretty pleased with how it went off. I'm glad I had this opportunity prior to the larger group to which I will be presenting in two weeks in Pennsylvania.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday, and a fine day it was. Nice weather for a change, and I came home to this bad boy. 6.3 lbs of feisty crustacean, and he barely fit in the pot (and it's a BIG pot!) A lot of people will tell you the big ones aren't any good, well they are wrong! This was delicious. Cooked him for about 25 minutes and it was perfect! Nik and I made short work of him. Betsy decided to pass. Too bad, honey! He was delish! Thanks for a great birthday.

Phalaenopsis

It's a pretty little orchid, isn't it? Watch out not to get too close, it just might bite!

As Easter approaches

Little ones get pictures taken. Ruby makes another visit to grampa's studio, and in 3 minutes we took 24 photographs, most of which turned out (the ribs were ready, and everyone was hungry!) Here are a couple. Loving the new background. What do you think?

Fun and Learning Wtih Don Chick

During last year's NHPPA convention, the annual scholarship auction was held, and among the items I walked away with was an afternoon of personal lighting instruction in my (residential) studio with Don Chick. Don is the current NHPPA President, and has won NH Photographer of the Year 2 of the last 3 years. He goes 4/4 in national with alarming regularity. He's the real deal. So I was delighted to score an afternoon of personal instruction for the paltry sum of $100. (The prior year he got $350 each from two photographers, neither of whom took advantage of their purchase.)

To those of you who have people as generous (and talented!) as Don donating their time in this way, take advantage of it.. Here's a selection from the images we created:

The End of MarksPixels

The MarksPixels era is coming to a close. Don't cry for me, Argentina. All is far from lost. Stay tuned for an exciting new announcement, coming soon!

A Little Photoshop Fun

Spent some time playing with some images of Jensine and Elise tonight. Lots of fun. Thanks to Kirk Voclain for the templates.

Late class of 2008 senior

Why call a senior who has yet to graduate late? Because most seniors get their "senior portraits" get them done between the spring of their junior year and the early fall of their senior year, mostly due to yearbook deadlines. This is Elise, a lovely young lady who came by the studio today.




If you've procrastinated through your senior year and have failed to get your senior portraits done or are simply unhappy with the images you got from the contract photographer, contact us. We'll set you right up. You'll be photographed by Mark himself, not an employee with little experience and training like you might find elsewhere. Give us a call and we'll schedule a consultation, during which we will discuss what your goals are, what your ideas are, and how we will get you some great images.

The Rubester

Ruby, my granddaughter, came by the studio today. What fun! We buried her in beanie babies. And put her pretty pink dress on her. And bunny ears. These are SOOC, as you can see. We all adore her.

Introducing Jensine!

The lovely Jensine is the first of the MarksPixels studio spokesmodels for the 2009 senior class. Isn't the awesome? We had a super fun session this afternoon, and a lot of the reason for this is she came prepared. She had plenty of different clothes, but also relevant props! She is studying culinary arts, and brought her chef uniform. She plays lacrosse and field hockey, and brought her sticks. Here is a small sampling, check out my myspace page or facebook page to see more.




Like what you see? We can do this for you, too! Contact me and we'll set something up. MarksPixels specializes in senior portraits, and is currently seeking additional senior spokemodels. Interested? Apply by contacting me!

Listen to the Music!

So how did we amuse ourselves last night? We went to the 1st annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of Greater Nashua concert. What a great time! There were 5 different acts, all of whom had ties to the Nashua area (many with LOOOOOOOOONG time ties.) And her honor, Mayor Donnaleee Lozeau even showed up, with commemorative proclamations for 3 of the bands. It was a fun night of rock and roll.

Many of the bands were pretty incestuous, borrowing and trading member from other bands, so it was interesting to see who played with whom over the course of the night. Leading off was Jimmy D, who did a solo acoustic set including some pretty great songs, including Ants Marching by DMB among others. The crowd hadn't totally gathered by then but he started things off well. Next up was the 3 piece band AMP, who were pretty damn good themselves, and included a couple of other guys for some of the last numbers. Then came crowd favorite Fantasia, who pretty much brought the house down, provoking the issuance of ladies' undergarments from the crowd. Now that was hilarious!



Fantasia bassist Ron Trudeau was the organizing force for this concert, which was a fundraiser for a scholarship in the memory of a teen killed last year in a car crash that also took the life of another teenage girl. The Nicole Scontsas fund was set up in memory of one of the young girls.

One of the things we did was to create slideshows of images from the concert during the course of the night and Sky Lounge owner Alex Newell got them up on the big screen (and a bunch of the other TVs) for us. In the next few days I am going to create a larger slideshow from the entire event and post it here (and on YouTube, probably). Check back. It will be fun!


After Fantasia the legendary Nashua band Aces and Eights played. I saw them close to 30 years ago up at the Derryfield School in Manchester. I didn't recognize a single person, LOL! Finishing up was Project Mess, dedicated to the memory of Chris Messier.

Many additional images will be posted in a gallery on www.markspixels.com

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is the most Hallmark of holidays, Valentine's Day. Your gift today is an image which I posted several years ago and which has showed up on a lot of italian blogs since. I think it is appropriate for today. Enjoy the day with your sweetie, and be sure to let your sweetie know how important s/he is to you. Hallmark holiday or not, every day is a good day to pursue love.

Saturday Night Fun

What to do on a snowy Saturday night? How about have a friend over and create some new images? Um, ok, I'm in. The lovely ladies here are my wife's friend Jen and my wife. We had a nice relaxed shoot last night. Maybe you and a friend would like to have a similar session? Contact me and we'll set something up!

Wanna learn some Lightroom?

Now that the contract has been signed, I am pleased to announce that I will be conducting a couple of seminars on Adobe Lightroom. This new application is designed for photographers and provides a new and streamlined workflow for most of the tasks that photographers face.

The first seminar is a Super Monday event which will be held in Manchester, NH in early April. This event is open to other photographers and is $99. It is an 8 hour program entitled Workflow at the Speed of Lightroom and is a complete overview of the software. Bring a laptop with Lightroom installed for some hands-on experience.

The second will take place in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania (right outside of Harrisburg) on April 22, when I will be presenting Workflow at the Speed of Lightroom to the Certified Profession Photographers of Pennsylvania. They will be opening this program up to others, and when I find out the fee for participation I will update this entry.

Come join me and learn Lightroom. If you are a photographer, this will revolutionize your workflow.

Website Reconstruction

I am currently working on revamping the website, www.markspixels.com

It has been a long time without a facelift, and it's badly in need to improvement. So far not too much has changed beyond the home and contact pages, but I'm motivated to move forward here. Returning visitors to the site will see some fairly obvious changes, with more to come. The slideshow on the homepage is somewhat large if you have a slow internet connection. I am a bit spoiled with my FIOS connection right now and so I'm not a good judge of whether it is too big or not. If you check it out, please leave a comment here (or send an email) and please include your connection type and/or speed.

I am also soliciting general comments on the site, whether they are directed towards the graphical design, user interface, navigation, images or whatever. This is your chance to influence things! Speak up!

The Doctors

A fellow member of my Business Networking International group, affectionately referred to as Dr Phil, came by the studio with his wife over the weekend. She is Dr Jessica. They are both chiropractors and make a cute couple. We had a nice, relaxed session from which I include a few shots here. Nice people. If you have back trouble, go see them and they'll straighten you right out.

Imaging USA

We recently returned from a terrific photographic conference in Tampa, Florida called ImagingUSA. It is the largest and best photographic conference in the world, and Betsy and I are pumped. We each attended over 10 seminars, frequently splitting up to maximize our learning. It has proved to be an effective strategy as we managed to learn more together than any one person could have learned. In addition to all the great speakers that the conference offered, the show floor was packed with vendors of all stripes. It was amazing, and it's a good thing the show floor was open for three days because there was so much to look at.

If that was all there was to Imaging, we'd have been more than satisfied, but the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones cannot be overlooked. It was great to see everyone, and the networking opportunities were staggering. It looks as if there will be additional speaking opportunities in the future as a direct result of meeting movers and shakers in Tampa. It's all very exciting.

The next few weeks will be spent strategizing how to move the business forward in a major way. We are ready to make the push, ready to bring both our photography and our photography business to the next level.

Welcome 2008!