NEW BLOG!!!!!!!!!

Hi all! We have some exciting news! We have a new blog!  We are stoke to have all of you as readers so please..... update your google readers/RSS feeds and let us know what you think!

Blog.markbrooke.com

WPPI...BIG BEAR...AND BROOKE'S MENU

WPPI: Over the past year we have met with many new photographers, we have learned a lot about running a company, we have risked it all to make our passions a reality, we have made some awesome decisions, and a few mistakes.... Last year was our first year at WPPI. It was honestly an amazing experience. We were able to get amazing discounts on products and meet some rad people that are now some of our bestest friends.  We are super excited to see you all there! 

Last week I  posted our WPPI menu options(business consulting) for Photographers and promised we would be posting our calendar as well. Mark and I were talking, and we think the best way for people to be in touch with us (candice and Mark) is to join twitter .    We are super stocked to meet with everyone!

Sunday: 

Afternoon: 3:30 we will be doing our "Big Huge Steak (3 hour IN-DEPTH consulting)". We only have 2 more spots open. Contact us directly if you want more info. 

Evening: we will be attending Sara France's party

Monday: 

Morning: Throughout the day we will be doing our individual "Crab leg and Veggies" sessions with Photographers (these are the individual headshot shoots and  hour consultations, we only have one spot left for each). Contact us for more INFO! .

Afternoon: 12:00 ish - 2:30 ish we will be hanging out at the shootsac booth with Jessica Claire

Evening: Becker's B -school party

Tuesday: 

Morning: 11:00 a.m. we are having Crepes at the Paris Hotel. We would looooveeee to meet everyone and hang out for some breakfast... see you there :)

Evening: We have the Mammoth Men and Blu domain party. If you are not already going to this you need to be! it will melt your face off!!!!!

Big Bear: Last week we got to head to the snow with some of our Bestest friends (Jessica, Jeff, Michael, Cyndie, Nate, Jaclyn, Amelia and Justin)! We rented a cabin for the long weekend, went skiing, bowling, had guacamole contests, and pretty much stayed up until 3:00 am every night laughing about nothing.... well now that I think about it Im sure it was something :) Thanks to Nate and Jaclyn's Point and shoot they captured the craziness!

It's GOOOOOOOLD!

in the early wintery months of 2008, eight celebrated, award-winning and downright awesome photographers from all over the country grabbed their snowboards to ride the mountains of mammoth, california. this marked the beginning of what is now known as…wait for it…the MAMMOTH MEN. what ensued during that getaway was a week filled with adventure, spontaneity, hijinks and storied tales. a bond was forged amongst these men and a commitment made to doing it again, and doing it often!

during the summer of 2008, the MAMMOTH MEN hit the road again. only this time, they loaded up 10 photographers in a prevost rock star tour bus, drove for five days up the california coast and shared it with everyone via their traffic happy blog. so much so that their blog readers actually got to choose their day-to-day adventures while watching them play out the next day. the blog following continued even after the west coast trip ended and garnered media attention in the blogosphere.

well, the guys are back for their much anticipated third installment of the MAMMOTH MEN. watch the mayhem unfold as these 12 photographers board their prevost and head into the american southwest to document their route 66 road-trip. packed with more guys, more miles and more camaraderie, it's not just a roadtrip...it's a lifestyle.

In case you missed all the action while it was happening, chiggy check out WWW.MAMMOTHMEN.COM for a horse tranquilizer sized dose of awesome! The MAMMOTH MEN will be embarking on another adventure VERY soon...stay tuned!

Mammoth Men 4 Trailer | The American Southwest from FRED EGAN on Vimeo.

WPPI MENU WITH THE BROOKE'S.

Over the past year we have met with many new photographers, we have learned a lot about running a company, we have risked it all to make our passions a reality, we have made some awesome decisions, and a few mistakes.... 

Because of the large number of inquires from photographers to meet up at WPPI, we came up with this "menu" of different options. We are super duper excited to see everyone! 

Starter Bread: About a week before WPPI we are going to be posting our schedule. Mark and I are going to be helping out with a few booths on the trade show floors. So when we post this please make note of where we will be so we can meet all of our blogger friends. Also we will be setting up a coffee morning for our "family club members" on The B-school (everyone is welcome to that)! The more you get to know us you are going to realize that we love meeting new people, so make sure you can coordinate your schedule to meet up with us. 

Veggies: We already have a few of these shoots set up so we wanted to extend the offer. If you are in need of Head shots or just want an awesome "Mark Brooke" 1 hour photo shoot, then email us! We would love to rock it out! Price: $350.00. Email us for all the info and booking times. 

Sweet Potatoes: If you are traveling with a good friend or significant other (husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend etc)... We are also going to be offering a portrait session similar to our engagement sessions. It will be a two hour shoot all over the Vegas strip or in the desert. The Price is $500.00 Email us for all the info and booking times. 

Crab legs (yumm): Mark and I were very blessed to have a  successful beginning in our business. We were able to book over 40 weddings our first year, and we were able to work with some perfect clients. Many people have asked us how we got started in our careers... Well for NEW photographer we are offering an hour coffee meeting were we will map out the exact steps Mark and I took to get to where we are today. We can answer questions and help you feel more comfortable with your 2009 photography goals. Price is $200.00. Email us for all the info and booking times. 

Big huge Steak (only three spots opened): Mark and I are going to set aside a three hour window of time were we will get together with three photographers. We will spend about an hour shooting, an hour editing, and an hour of answering questions. This is an opportunity for you to watch, shoot, and learn how we do what we do and mold it into something you can call your own. Its going to be freakin' awesome!!!! Price is $400.00 Email us for all the info and booking times. 

Lastly we would like to play a fun game.   Try to answer the following 3 questions in our comment box!

Q #1 Mark and my company is called "Mark Brooke Photographers". Does anyone know the reason why we are called that?  (hard questions)

Q#2 What kind of car does Candice drive (a hint is in one of our posts).

Q#3 Did Candice want Mark to get a nose ring? (loaded question)

The first person who gets all of the questions right will win their choice of veggies or crab legs on the menu. 

Update: Winner is Gretchen Knoblock 

80's Prom! embarrassing... and RAD!

Last week was amazing... why? Because we got to hang out with some of our great friends at Chenin Boutwells 80's prom Baby shower.  After going to a "baby shower" like this there is no way I am going to be able to beat it when mark and I have kids. It was so fun to just goof around for a few hours. I did have one embarrassing moment while I was at the shower ( I always seem to have one:) .... Check out Jessica Claire's Blog to see what I am talking about. In my defense I am "that girl" that was not able to watch PG13 movies until I was 18, so my mind is clean I promise.

 Here are a couple of photos (that i stole off Jessica's blog!) that sum the night up. 

Tomorrow I am going to be posting a game plan for WPPI so stay tuned!

We need your Help!!!!!!!

Justin and Amelia Lyon are 2 of the most awesome people on the whole planet! Over the past Year or so we have grown to call them some of our really close friends. Their family has been hit pretty hard with some recent developments. I will let her explain it.......

"As many of my blog followers may agree, I am definitely a picture-taker and not a writer. I do my best to write positively and according to my entries in order to describe the many adventures I experience as a photographer, mother, and wife. Well this time I am writing as a daughter and I ask my readers, in advance, for forgiveness as I stumble over this blog post in order to put into words the way that I feel about an unfortunate trial that has been placed in the lap of my family (in fact, as I am trying to type this my heart is pounding so loud I can hear it in my ears). This is for my dad.

Earlier this year he found himself randomly falling down and even found himself having trouble walking and lifting his right leg. He went in for some testing to see what was going on, only to find that there would be no solution and that he would never walk normal again. To make the long story short he was diagnosed with ALS (or many of you may know it as Lou Gehrig's disease, please click here to find a site that describes exactly what this disease is and how it can effect the victims that get diagnosed with it). In simple terms, this disease causes muscles to stop reacting to the brain's commands and eventually takes over the whole body. My dad was diagnosed with ALS officially in September and since then he has lost complete use of his right leg and his left leg is now fading faster than the right. The progression of this disease takes a different toll on each one of its victims, with my dad his ALS is progressing rapidly and he is already in an electrical wheelchair.

Now here is the reason for this post, I am reaching out to the world for help. I already know that my dad won't survive this, but with help, he can be comfortable in his last months (hopefully years). I am auctioning off a family portrait session to help raise funds that will be put to helping him with medical bills, rebuilding a handicap bathroom, or the purchase of a wheelchair accessible van. While I know that one family portrait session won't pay for all of this, every little bit will help, especially since my dad hasn't been able to work since August. I am starting the auction bidding at $250. I usually charge $500 for our portrait sittings. The sitting will include approxiamately two hours of coverage, online proofing, and a $100 print credit. Please email me at amelia@amelialyon.com to submit your bids, I will close the bidding at midnight on new years eve. There has already been a savings account set up for him and everything donated is tax deductible. I really appreciate any help in this effort, I plan to do a few more auctions in the near future, but this is my first attempt......

.......I have had an overwhelming amount of response to last post about my dad and I feel so blessed to see the amount of love and concern for this situation! Many people have responded with either a bid or just wanting to know how to donate, so I decided to post some info for those who just would like to send a donation. Please send all donations in a check form made out to "Faye Brady" (the account is under my grandmother's name) and on the bottom left part of the check write "Ken Brady handicap van fund". Donations should be mailed to:

Faye Brady
1048 E. 13590 S.
Draper, UT 84020

I really am so thankful by everyone's kind words and encouragement, I feel strengthened by people I have never even met and that feels amazing. Also, I know my dad has been reading all of the comments posted and he feels that love as well. Thank you all!"

Stop what you are doing right now and help them out if you can!!! SERIOUSLY, every little bit helps!  Like she said every donation is TAX deductible and the bidding closed on NEW YEARS EVE at the stoke of midnight! so bid NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

email all bids to: amelia@amelialyon.com

A change in life-style

What you are about to watch is not just a trailer...it's a lifestyle. Report for adventure November 16th in Southern California at Noon.  I am so stoked to be a part of this. 



Mammoth Men 3 Trailer from FRED EGAN on Vimeo.


In the early wintery months of 2008, eight celebrated, award-winning and downright awesome photographers from all over the country grabbed their snowboards to ride the mountains of Mammoth, California. This marked the beginning of what is now known as…wait for it…The Mammoth Men. What ensued during that getaway was a week filled with adventure, spontaneity, hijinks and storied tales. A bond was forged amongst these men and a commitment made to doing it again, and doing it often!

During the Summer of 2008, The Mammoth Men hit the road again. Only this time, they loaded up 10 photographers in a Prevost rock star tour bus, drove for five days up the California Coast and shared it with everyone via their traffic happy blog. So much so that their blog readers actually got to choose their day-to-day adventures while watching them play out the next day. The blog following continued even after the West coast trip ended and garnered media attention in the blogosphere.

Well, the guys are back for their much anticipated third installment of The Mammoth Men. Watch the mayhem unfold as these 12 photographers board their Prevost and head into the American Southwest to document their Route 66 road-trip. Packed with more guys, more miles and more camaraderie, it's not just a roadtrip...it's a lifestyle.

Nose Ring... poll

In honor of election week.......

So today Mark picked Jessica and I up from the airport and next thing I know he has an "AWESOME" Idea.... Mark wants to get his nose peirced! He thinks its going to be the coolest thing ever. Michael Norwood and Jessica Claire think it would look RAD and Jessica suggested that I should take a Blog poll and let the world decide. 

  

He just wants a small hoop on one of his nostrils what do you think? And please list the reasons why you think he should or should not get it. 

VOTE HERE!!!!

Image X, New Orleans style : Candice

Last week I had an amazing opportunity to rock it with Jessica Claire in New Orleans. Not only is she one of my greatest friends but she can teach a "HE*L" of a work shop! 

The week started off with me meeting about 60 new amazing photographers, and it ended with me at a roulette table having the time of my life winning $170.00...wup wup. 

Through out the work shop there were times for all the students to take photos of models that Image X had provided. So here are a few shots I grab over 30 other photographers shoulders. 

I also had the opportunity to do a maternity shoot for my new photo friends Ryan and his wife. They are super cute together and they are way pumped at the thought of having their third child in the next few weeks. 

The trip was RAD! And I had such a blast helping J.Claire out!

Lastly I can not go with out giving a shout out to JEN BERRY! SHE IS KINDA AMAZING!  Her blog comment was stinking out of this world! She really took "sharing the love" to a whole new level. 

I know nothing about this guy other then he was super kind enough to let me take his Birthday photo as he made his way down the street. 
The Maternity shoot!..

Would you like a little more sneak with your peek?

...
... more will come soon soon, i promise!

FLIP-BOOKS!

Those of you who are reading this and are photographers, you all know the importance of finding "yourself". It is so important to your success in the wedding photography business. If you are not yourself your clients will be disappointed and you will be disappointed in the long run. Since the beginning we have been extremely driven to find who we are so we can expand and grow our business in the right way. Mark and I started heavily Branding ourselves about 5 months ago. We made our welcome video (posted at the top of the blog), we redesigned our website/blog, we are in the process of re-branding all our marketing material,so that everything will be communicating the same thing and we are still working on some "special projects" that will be released later in life. But It took us a long time to figure out "who" we were and who we wanted to be as wedding photographers.

So here is a large part of what we mean by "finding yourself". we have expanded our Mark Brooke Photographers BRANDING! We decided to add something super radical to offer to our Brides. We wanted something Fresh, and something we have never seen before in the wedding biz. Something Mark has always loved has been flip books, so we thought it would be a great thing to incorporate. Along with these nifty videos that we put together we create REAL physical flip books for the bride and groom!!!!!

So now offered to all our Brides is our MBP flip books. Here are the "favorites" from the last few months.

Our Studio!

Finding your funk in your own step...

About a year and a half ago, Candice and I started the Wedding biz, and have (by the grace of God) made it into a little something called: The Funky-Fresh, Artsy, Mark Brooke Wedding photographers. Since then He (GOD) has blessed us with a meeting place for our funky-fresh, artsy clients!!

 

Since moving in, we have had a crazy first few months!! But now, we have finally gotten around to redecorating!  So these past few days have been spent revamping our studio to rock it like its nobody's biz. We started with the wall colors, and next week we are moving to the furniture, crown molding, and decorations. So we wanted to share what we have done so far with the pad. We cant wait to have everyone over to embrace the new look. 

40,000 viewers.... and 1,567 comments!

Life, Where does it take us?
Many times in life you will find yourself in a situation that makes you smile. Lately we have been smiling way to much. Life is great....But like most everyones life, it has had it's hard times. And us...We have had both, seriously BOTH. So here is a personal blog post that our family has asked us to do every once in a while. They dont think its cool that we have a blog that they check ever other day, and it doesn't even have pictures of us.... So here you go Fam.

The past two weeks have been way to busy. I (candice) was in Boston (shooting with Jessica) for about 4 days. When I got home we headed straight to Hume Lake Christian Camp to shoot an E-session for two days. Marks Band use to be the summer band up there, so it was nice to watch belly-flopping-contest, and eat two milk shakes a day with our Hume Friends.

Then the weekend hit...boom, two "out of this world" weddings are done, and we are in the processes of image selection and editing. To Celebrate our two Weddings we decided to have Three BBQ's in a row. some with our great photo friends and one with our radical Church friends, so yes, I am now a meat eaters to the extreme. Yes fam....I was trying to be a vegetarian, but it SUCKED! side note, I shouldn't say I decided not to be a vegetarian, Mark banded it from my life. He said I was way to mean etc...So I guess I have to get fit some other way.

This post is titled 40,000 viewers because we finally hit one of our goals, which was to have a larger # of viewers.  In january we installed a "visitor tracker" and since then we have hit 40,000 views!!!!  We honestly can't believe that that many people are interested in our lives, but it is kinda awesome.

An interesting conversation that has been circulating among our friends is "when is it time to say "No, no means no". When do you look someone in the eyes and say "I have had enough" Why are we to scared to not stand up for ourselves. This is happening in every area of our lives, and ironically our friends lives. In our business and our personal lives we have found it hard to say NO. But the awesome thing about the word NO, is you can say Yes to a lot more. 

The funny story of the weeks is about Hoperton... Our 10 pound, lop eared bunny who is an escape artist. Like most of you know we got her when we were in the apartment complex in Orange. I was "lonely" and I needed a fluffy friend. Well, when we moved to Ladera I had to cage her into a small corner in our back yard. Well for the past three months she has found every single way to escape. I secretly feel ok when this happens because I know she is having a wonderful night on the town. But unfortunately I feel guilty not catching her when she runs across our front yard. So for the past months we have gone through the dance of: her escaping, me catching her, and then watching another escape. It is quite entertaining but annoying. I want to just leave her in Victors backyard. He has 4 kids and I know he would never notice. 

And the last thing I would like to inform everyone about is our adventure of house hunting. Yes, we are looking to buy another house here in Ladera Ranch. We have this whole crazy plan, and I think it might actually work. Don't freak dad... We got it under control.

For all of you who could care less about what was written in the last 100 paragraphs here are some fun photos we took of ourselves at our last wedding. Yes, we do like to party! 

I get down.....
I get down....
We get down....
and would love to party with you.....

Good night :)

Last night!! BOOYAH!

So it is super late, but we couldn't resist sharing a little about what happened in the last six hours. Last minute Mark and I put together a dinner with a few "newer photographers" that have been emailing us these past few months. We love the community we have with our blog readers! All of you are so awesome! 

We all met at El Torito in Mission Viejo and talked about: marriage counseling, Margaritas, WPPI, photo questions, house buying, etc... It was awesome to be at the same table with people who are so pumped about photography. And it was so inspiring to see all of the drive and excitement in their eyes. 

Our new friends: Molly, Hennsie, Katie,and Rolf 

Then afterwords we met up with some of our greatest friends Carlie and Gabriel. We had alot on our mind, and the honesty in the air was refreshing. We feel so blessed to have them in our lives. They started their photog. biz at the same time as us, and their spunk and friendship is priceless.  We had an awesome time talking about where we had come, and where we plan on going. In the world of photography it is so important to have your support team surrounding you and helping you along your journey. We have been blessed with several people in our lives who we can count on to answer questions, bounce ideas off of, and be honest with. 

Also, a side note: Mark and I are now pealing from our vacation! it sucks!  bye bye beautiful golden brown.

Boutwells New Actions and the [b] School

We have been getting many emails asking about how we do our post processing, lighting, coloring etc... So we wanted to let you in on a little secret :) We use the Boutwells Totally Rad Actions.  They are honestly out of this world!!!!! Doug warned us when he was making them that they would be awesome, but he honestly blew our socks off with these ones. He should re-name them to "Totally Rockin, Rad, Badical, Actions.

Here is a slideshow of a few Before and after shots. they are jpeg file brought straight into Photoshop!....watch the magic.

The [b] School: A few weeks ago Mark and I where able to do a little sneek preview of the [b] school! Everyone knows that what ever Becker touches is successful...but when we saw the School it blew our mind, I literally kept telling him "this is crazy cool". It is going to be the goddess of all networking, online forums, clubs etc...We know the school is going to be our one stop shop in all our photography needs. Becker mentions in one of his tutorials that there will be clubs. Well when we found this out a couple of weeks ago we decided to start brainstorming of the club we wanted to run. So..... right when the [b] school launches we are going to launch our "The Family" club. So....

We will do Monthly Family dinners, Monthly family networking events, monthly family videos to help out those who have questions, and consistent online chats with all the family members.....Its going to be one big happy family of photographers. We are super excited to be apart of the [b] school when it launches, and do what ever we can to help out our family members. O.k. so who wants to be the Dad? J/k

FAQ: How did you do that!

Hey mark and Candice,

I'm D, and I'm 25 years old aspiring wedding photographer from Miami. I've been blog-stalking for a while (and am somehow unashamed to admit it. strange.) I really love your work and its a consistent source of inspiration to me.

Your pink ink studio interview says you've only been a professional photographer for a year now-- I'm hoping you'd be willing to take some time and reply (or write a post) about how you got started and established yourself. I'm at the point where I know I want to jump in, But I'm not quite sure how to do it. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks Guys,

D

FAQ How did you get to where you are today?

Mark and I get this email consistently now, so we thought we would answer the question on our blog.

Our story: I use to work at ADP payroll and Mark use to be a server at a yacht club and He owned his own Music lesson Biz, teaching little kids guitar lessons. We had just gotten married and money was super tight. Mark had always been into "artsy" things like guitar (he majored in it) and photography. So with our $2000, that we got from our Money dance at our wedding, we bought a "nice" camera...the 20D, a couple of lenses and some CF cards (since then we have upgraded our gear). But it is good to know that we took our time building our gear. Side note:...-A good "lens/ mindset" to filter you purchases though is to ask this question: "will this add value to MY business." Just because some other pro is using the 50mm 1.2 and the Mark III does not mean that by purchasing it your pictures will look like theirs. :)-

Gabriel was thinking about starting off a biz also and we had met newer photogrpahers like AHS, so we kept throwing ideas off each other to see what the other person was doing. For fun we started off shooting our friends and anything else for free. We were considering doing it for a living but that seemed to high of a goal at the time.

About 1 month into owning a "nice" camera I went "crazy" aka got ambitious.... I saw Mark with a camera in his hand every day and he was actually really good at it, for a "beginner". So I made up my mind right then and there that this is what we would do with the rest of our life. I was sick of my job and Mark was overwhelmed with music lesson, serving, and school. Photography seemed like a tunnel of light and freedom. So of course I was going to MAKE THIS HAPPEN! And besides it was super fun.

The First Steps:

1. we found others that were beginners photographers and built a community (O.S.P. / Fast track Photographer)

2. we found a place to rent gear... there is no need to Buy a bunch of gear on a credit card! (Sammy's or Pro-Photo)

3. we decided who we wanted to be and what style of photography we wanted to produce. Seriously!! We can not stress how important it is to be YOURSELF!!! every other photographer i know that has "made it" will agree with us!!( our style: Artsy, photo-journalistic, Funky)

4. We networked our little butts off ( my favorite thing to do, i love meeting new people!)

5. We gained some confidence (shoot over 200 pictures every day etc..)

6. Figured out a way to Market (options: referrals,NETWORKING!, Ad's, expos, magazines etc... )

7. Built a website (Mark built ours...and soon it will be done through Show it sites. It is going to be freaking awesome).

8. Told everyone and their mom we were getting into photography.

After we did these things are business flourished. Everyone is different, so your steps might look much different then ours but like I said last night to Josh (a newer photographer that took us out to dinner) be yourself. Figure out who you want to be, and DO IT! So many people want to make that plunge into a career and they tip toe around it because its to scary or its to hard. Screw all that DO IT. When ever Jessica and I work out we think OK we don't want to run 3 mile today, but heck lets walk the neighborhood. AKA: Do something instead of nothing. Just to nail this point to the ground...If there are two different lost people in a forest. The one who makes decisions to find their way back home will live much longer then the person who sits and waits to be found. Even if the lost guy is making wrong choices he will live longer! So don't be so scared to make a "wrong" choice. If you do you WILL recover and learn.

Thank you so much for your questions. We feel so blessed and honored to help a few people out. We love love love what we do and we cant wait to see where we are next year. We love all of our family, photographers and friends that read our blog! You are all rockin' people.

Speaking of Gabriel...Here are some shots we grabbed of them this past week.