Sunrise in Iowa, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Another image from my 2007 collection taken with my old Canon Rebel XTi. This image was taken during a sunrise south of North English, Iowa, USA. Actually right in between North English and South English. Being from Colorado we don’t really have humidity and little did I know that during the night all the humidity collects in the grass. By time I walked from the car to the field and back I was soaked up to my waist. Next time I’m bringing boots!

Technical Ramblings: Taken with Canon Rebel XTi. Postprocess work in Lightroom included some chromatic aberration adjustments (because I was using a so-so lense at the time). Photoshop CS3 work using the Totally Rad Actions; Technicolor Dream World, Ying/Yang (all over the place), Green With Envy (on the trees).

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 31 Jan 09, 10.03PM MST.

New Life, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

A new pine tree sprout growing on the forest floor. Was running through my images from 2007 and came across this image from a trip to South Dakota. I have a client looking for some tree pictures and I think this fits the bill.

Technical Ramblings: This is an image out of my old Canon Rebel XTi shot at ISO 800. Typically, my images from the XTi at ISO 800 were unusable as the detail got all muddy. This one is pretty clear for the ISO setting. Postprocessing in Photoshop CS3 using the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap! (a couple duplicates on the contrast and saturation layers), Technicolor Dream World (gives the dreamy effect), Warm it up Kris! and Burn-Out. I also did some noise reduction and extra sharpening in Lightroom.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 30 Jan 09, 4.27PM MST.

Ryan, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Another candid shot from the portrait session in Estes Park, CO. This boy is going to break some hearts as he gets older.

Technical Ramblings: Image taken with the Canon 5D II. Room lit by a couple of AlienBee B800s in large softboxes. Post work done in Photoshop CS3 using the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap!, Prettyizer and Select-O-Pop (eyes and teeth). I also think I did some cleanup of the face with the clone tool to remove some dry skin.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 28 Jan 09, 7.59PM MST.

Ethan, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

A candid shot from a portrait shoot up in Estes Park, CO.

Technical Ramblings: This image was shot with the Canon 5D Mark II using an on-board Canon 580ex II flash. The flash is bounced over my right shoulder against a big picture window. Post work done in Photoshop CS3 using the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap!, Prettyizer and Select-O-Pop (eyes).

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 28 Jan 09, 7.59PM MST.

Campbell, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Campbell is the middle child of three daughters from my friend’s family and extremely smart. I was able to capture a very serious expression in this image.

Technical Ramblings: Two AlienBee B800s shot at a white seamless paper background. One AlienBee B800 in a large soft box camera left. Post work done in Photoshop with Totally Rad Actions; Prettyizer, Oh Snap!, Select-O-Pop (eyes), Pro-Retouch (some dry skin on the cheeks).

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 24 Jan 09, 10.00PM MST.

Canyon, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Another portrait of my friend’s daughter. She is a photogenic model.

Technical Ramblings: Two AlienBee B800s shot at a white seamless paper background. One AlienBee B800 in a large soft box camera left. Post work done in Photoshop with Totally Rad Actions; Prettyizer, Oh Snap!, Ying/Yang to lighten the white foreground.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 24 Jan 09, 7.31PM MST.

Canyon, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Canyon

Portrait of my friend’s daughter. It was hard to get her to stay in the chair. Super glue perhaps next time?

Technical Ramblings: Two AlienBee B800s shot at a white seams paper background. One AlienBee B800 in a large soft box camera left. Post work done in Photoshop with Totally Rad Actions; Prettyizer, Oh Snap!, Ying/Yang to light white foreground.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 19 Jan 09, 10.02PM MST.

I have officially released my new website for the portrait and event side of my business. Check it out at:

www.markmortensen.com

The new site is a BluDomain Adobe Flash product I purchase about a month ago. Figured it was time to get one of those fancy Flash sites for my photography business instead of just the blog. I will be posting a review of my experience with Blu and their products in the near future.  Overall, Blu’s products are good, however, their customer support and site admin tools could use some work.

What’s the future of the blog, you ask? My plan is to start transforming it into a blog about my photography business.  Essentially a place to share the steps I’ve been taking to startup my business and to eventually go pro.  One thing I like to do is educate others on photography and the business.  I’ve had some ideas for the tag line of the blog:

- From noisy cubicle to digital noise

- From IT to ISO

- From programming to postprocessing: My path to pro

- Path to pro

I’d love to hear what you’d think would be a good tag line.  So drop a comment!  Of course one of the first things I need to figure out is how to stop all the SPAM I get in my blog comments.  Uggh.  Don’t people have better things to do with their time?

In an attempt to broaden the paths in which people can buy my work, I decide to open up an ImageKind and CafePress account.  I’ve had requests via Flickr to purchase some of my photos and these storefronts appear to be an easy way to offer this feature.  I’ve always had my iStockPhoto account but not all of my fine art work is available on iStock.  I’ll have to admit I’ve let iStock slip these past few months as I’ve been focusing on the portrait side of the business.  Portraits have been good to me from a business perspective. But I’m always looking for ways to generate some more revenue and ImageKind and CafePress seem like good tools. So check out my store fronts!