We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mark Whitaker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, thanks for joining us today. Is there a lesson you learned in school that’s stuck with you and has meaningfully impacted your journey?

Learning how to budget time and multi task. I went to Brooks Institute of Photography, the Classes were broken up into Sessions, which were eight weeks, Eight weeks of Instruction, one week for final exams then the eighth week was one day and either a lecture or critique. For the first year I was working full time while going to school and it was extremely hard to plan for the assignment, photograph the assignment (we were using black and white 35mm and 4×5′ sheet film ) then process the negatives, print the image, mount the image. Often times we were working on several assignments depending on if you had to “re shoot” the assignment due to missing some critical standard, out of focus, over exposure.

Mark, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started off in Photography, taking photos of my friends and skateboarding as a memory of the places we had gone. I fell in love with photography and decided i wanted to be a skateboard photographer, and shoot for the big magazines, Thrasher and Transworld. I bought a used film camera, (digital was decades away from being a reality) After a while several friends got into playing music and invited out to their shows, I would bring my camera and document the shows and the scene, in my hometown of Oxnard, CA. I found I truly enjoyed photography and would go out every weekend photographing either bands or skateboarding, I enrolled in a introductory photography class at Ventura College to improve my skills and my teacher Bill Hendricks really inspired my passion, he never judged me for taking punk rock photos or skateboarding, photos. In the beginning i wasn’t a people photographer, I was more about capturing the moment. It happened that at one show it was a rockabilly show and seeing the girls dressed to the nines, looking fabulous with their vintage looks that I decided i wanted to photograph pin up girls. I started going to car shows and got a few friends to model and from then on, I loved it. I love cars and motorcycles and the music and culture that goes with it., I have been fortunate in my career to make a lot of good friends both through skateboarding and music and am still friends with a lot of the bands that I grew up with. Even though I still photograph bands, my main focus is portrait photography, I love shooting both indoor studio locations as well as outdoor, there is something about mother nature as a backdrop you just can’t beat. I believe what sets me apart is my attention to detail and use of high contrast and bright colors making my photos really stand out. I have friends tell me that they know my photos by looking at them even before they see my signature or ask who took the photo.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I major pivoting point for me was enrolling in Brooks Institute of photography, and the change over from film to digital photography. I was not very computer savvy and really struggled with learning Photoshop in the beginning but after a ton of time and help from class mates i was able to learn and become proficient in Photoshop, coming from a film background I treat my images as Digital negatives, I truly believe in “getting it right” in camera, I have found that that saves me countless hours of work and unneeded retouching.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started off small and have managed to build my brand and loyalty on Social media by being consistent, I don’t chase after trends or shoot the cool thing of the moment, I photograph what I like and am passionate about and I feel people see that. Find a niche you like even if there 100’s doing it already but make it yours and don’t be afraid to fail, and try something new. An example for me would be offering Medium format film photography images along with digital, Film really forces me to slow down and be fully aware of the scene and the subject I’m photographing and makes the client feel important, because It’s something special and you are giving them your full attention.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.whitakerfoto.com
• Instagram: @whitakerfoto.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhitakerFoto/
• Twitter: @fotomark138

Image Credits
Model Credits: Instagram: 1. Jenny @babeznbacon 2. Amy @sin_on_skin 3. Jessie @missjessiemai 4. Tal @teenytal 5. Dani Divine @dani_divine 6. Kami @abbysis 7. Roxi @roxirocketpinup 8. Erika @emreeves5