We recently connected with Mark Burkhalter and have shared our conversation below.
Mark, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
I personally have an odd way of looking at success. I feel most people measure success as how much money they make, or what they own, I measure it with happiness. When it comes to my photos and videos, I don’t look at how much money I made, I look at how the content makes my client and myself feel. If it’s capturing a wedding, the paycheck is great but the client having the photos I took to look back at with a smile in 20 years? That’s priceless. I have two digital photo frames in my office with all met favorite photos in them, it brings me so much joy seeing all these photos I’ve taken over the years and when I finish a shoot and can add more to them from it, that’s success to me.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Mark Burkhalter! I am a photographer / videographer that fell in love with cameras at a young age and have been obsessed with them ever since. Back when I was a young lad, I used to always tell my father what to record with the family video camera if I didn’t have it myself, ever since then I have loved the idea of being able to capture moments in time forever with a camera, both with photo and video. Today I still have that same love and excitement I had back when I was young whenever my camera is in my hand but luckily I have gotten way more skilled than I was way back when. I absolutely love capturing moment for people to be able to look back on one day, whether it be their wedding bad, maternity photos, photos of pets, birthday parties, you name it and ill capture it for you to have forever! I also love capturing photos when I’m not hired for a shoot, often I have a camera in my hand. My favorite things to capture are lighthouses, waterfalls, nature, trains, abandoned places, cities, and castles! I’m very easy to get along with and most people love working with me because I always do my best to make everyone as comfortable around me as possible (you get better smiles out of people when they are truly having fun and the vibes are good). I have a very unique way I see the world, I think everything has beauty in it. I love being able to use my photos to capture the world and let people see it through my eyes and let them just see how truly breathtaking this planet is. I always love when someone just tells me how much they love seeing my work and how it makes them happy, that means more than the world to me. The rush I get from capturing the a photo of a brand new lighthouse or a video of a couples first kiss as a married couple is a feeling I’ll never stop chasing.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Best source of new clients? Word of mouth. Social media is great and wonderful, having people see your work whenever you post is a truly amazing thing but word of mouth is the best. For me, when booking a photographer/videographer, the skill of the shooter is only part of it, I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from friends from weddings I’ve attended as a guest instead of working and just hearing after that they absolutely hated their camera team because the people weren’t great. I’d follow up with how did the photos and video come out? They would always say something along the lines of, the content was fine or ever great but the people themselves not being fun or just even “not a good vibe” was more important to them than just the content. So back to my point, word of mouth of people telling everyone that not only does my content come out great, but I was a joy to be around during our shooting time and how they had more fun cause I was there really makes a world of difference when people are looking for recommendations! So some advice, love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life, and when you love what you do, you do it with a smile, and people will most of the time wanna smile with you.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Definitely when someone loves you work! From someone just understanding your vision or having them see a brand new location they have never seen before. People making my photos of them their profile photos on social media is always a super cool thing to see and going to peoples houses and seeing my photos they have ordered as prints in their house is a feeling as I can’t fully describe but its magical. On the other side, I find it so rewarding when I go on a trip and I capture a photo that makes my heart race and getting home, editing it and then ordering it as a canvas and hanging it on the wall, also a truly magical feeling.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://MarkBMedia.com
- Instagram: FroManMark
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FroManProductions
