As a member of the West Chamber of Commerce for Jefferson County, I hosted a ribbon cutting at my studio earlier this month on Thursday 06.10.10.  A big Thank You goes out to all the people that attended!

Some very big scissors!

Mark giving a little speech.

Food and flowers. A big thank you to Bri and Kim for the flowers and Corie for getting the food together.

Bennie Anderson winning a fabulous door prize!

David Charles receiving a Mark Mortensen original fox image as a door prize!

Bennie Anderson the West Chamber Ambassador taking a break.

Helping my daughter, Lauren, out with an image.

Mark Mortensen Photography is running a special for the month of June 2010 called “Kids With Their Favorite Things”.  Bring in your kids with their favorite things for a 15-min studio session.  Package includes 1 – 8×10, 8 – Wallets and 1 – Facebook Image (1 pose) for only $99.  Call for appointment! 720.260.0695

Mark Mortensen Photography : June 2010 Special : Kids With Their Favorite Things

–
Mark Mortensen
Denver Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com

As you may or may not know, I recently rented some photography studio space in south Denver. The studio/gallery will be participating in the Old South Pearl St First Friday Art Walk on June 4th.  We would love for you to stop by and say hello!  My business focuses mainly on portrait and event photography, but for the Art Walk I will have nature and art pieces on display as well.  Other artists will be showcasing their work too, including a woodworker friend (Cliff Whitehouse of Bernwood Design) and another photographer (the gallery owner, Sara Frances).

Here are the details:

Mark Mortensen Photography
1801 South Pearl Street, Denver
Friday, June 4th  3-8 pm
Saturday, June 5th 10 am – 4 pm
Sunday, June 6th 9 am – 2pm

In case you are interested, there are a number of other galleries and businesses in the area that are participating in the First Friday Art Walk.  Most of them are located between 1300 and 1900 South Pearl Street.  And if you would prefer to stop by later that weekend, take note that there’s a Farmers’ Market on South Pearl Street on Sunday morning.

–
Mark Mortensen
Denver Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com
(plus Nature and Art!)
www.MortensenFineArt.com

Have no idea what to get your Mom for mother’s day? How about a picture of the kids, grandkids, daughter, son, etc?

Mark Mortensen Photography is offering a Limited Edition Mother’s Day Photography Session. The Limited Edition special is a 20 minute mini session at my studio in south Denver. Cost is $150 and includes 1 – 8×10, 8 wallets and a facebook image (1 pose).

Hurry as availability is limited and time is running out!

studio: 1801 S. Pearl St, Denver, CO 80210
phone: 720.260.0695
web: www.markmortensen.com

–
Mark Mortensen
Denver Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com

Big announcement! After several years of building my photography business from scratch I now have some official studio space!  Up until now I’ve been shooting portraits on location or in the living room of my house.  I still will be doing on location photography, however, any client meetings and studio sessions will mainly be done at my new retail location.  The building is an established photography studio of close to 30 years on the historic S. Pearl St in Denver Colorado. This past November I joined the West Chamber of Commerce in Jefferson County where in one of my business leads group I met a bookkeeper.  After a presentation of my photography to the leads group I mentioned I was looking for studio space to lease.  Turns out this bookkeeper works for another photographer, Sara Frances, who was looking to lease out her studio on Old South Pearl St..  One thing led to another and now I have the space.  I’m sharing the space with Sara, however, she wants to take her photography towards the non-profit documentary crowd and I’ll be focusing on family portraiture and events including weddings.

If you are in the Denver area swing by the studio sometime.  Right now I have the studio doors open on the weekends only and if you see my sidewalk sign out I’m there.  There will be an official opening at some point in the future.

Mark Mortensen Photography
1801 S. Pearl St.
Denver, CO 80210
720.260.0695

Studio front

Welcome to the lobby

The camera room with a work room in the back through the double doors.

–
Mark Mortensen
Denver Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com

Yet another step of the rebranding effort this year was to create a new set of business cards.  I’ve been using business cards from moo in the past and absolutely love the quality of their cards.  Plus with moo cards you can have a variety of different images on the back side of the card.  They are not the cheapest cards available but the quality of the card is top notch and having a mini portfolio in my pocket is worth the extra expense in my opinion.  For this round of cards I’m using my new logo on the front

with these images for the back to focus on my family portraiture side of the business.

Part of the business development plan this year is to rebrand the business.  One of the first steps for me was to create a new logo.  The current logo I personally created over a weekend  and didn’t give it a ton of thought.  The new logo has been a work in progress for well over a couple of months.  I also involved the help of a graphic artist Sandy Rafferty Vivian of Evolution Design.  Sandy and I have known each other since the mid 90′s and I helped her with maintaining her computers when she started her own small business well over 10 years ago.  With this project it felt like we had come up with hundreds of iterations on different logo designs.  When I would start narrowing down on an idea I would show some of my friends and colleagues and get a different response from every one of them.  Turns out it is really hard to create a new logo and brand.  Creating this logo was as difficult as naming my two kids because it is something I’m going to have to live with for a while.  In my kids example they have to be happy with the name that we gave them.  Funny thing when you name you kid.  Ever wonder why you have the name you have? The next step in the business development is a secret, however, with any luck will be revealed within the next couple of weeks.

My iStockPhoto collection has been a tiny little side of the business.  I’ve been adding to my stock portfolio as I have time and have finally reached the 250 downloads and 50% or greater acceptance rating required for exclusivity.  I’m actually at 70% acceptance and iStock has definitely made me a better shooter in terms of composition and quality.  Today I got this email:

Dear Mark:

Congratulations! The iStockphoto administrators have approved your exclusivity

application. We are pleased to begin this new, mutually beneficial and

professional relationship with you.

Thank you for your time and effort.

Best Regards,

iStockphoto LP

Yeah me! So what does this mean?  Well instead of the nickel I make off of a sale of an image I make 5 pennies.  :)  Actually, my royalties do start going up as I start selling more images since I’m exclusive with iStock and their Getty partner sites.  You can check out my stock portfolio here.

–
Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com