Providence Wedding Photographers | Newport Wedding Photographers | Rhode Island Wedding Photographers – Mark Andrew Photography

On the second day of Inspire Boston we all wearily trudged into our first session of the day at 9 AM. Blam, Eric Laurits hits us right up the head with an inspiring video that made me think about my entire vision as a wedding photographer (He has the video on his FB page).

Then the second BLAM. A slide with seven questions that make us question who we are. I don’t mean who we are as a wedding photographers. I MEAN who we are as a human being.

1. How would you define personal vision?
2. How do you articulate personal vision?
3. Where does personal vision come from? Is it ingrained or acquired?
4. How do you go about taking personal vision and putting it into practice?
5. How has your personal vision changed over your lifetime?
6. Have you ever compromised your personal vision?
7. Have you ever questioned the authenticity of your personal vision?

I mean! WOW! Those are questions that rock us to our core. I had scribbled down my answers and then took some time this weekend to reflect and write out my answers in a quite place. It was a gut wrenching experience and I looked at it from the angle of being several things in one person. I’m not just a wedding photographer, I’m a husband, dad, son, brother, uncle, cousin, friend and I needed to write out my statement so it incorporated all these facets. I also wanted to be real and attainable. I didn’t want it to sound like some corporate bullshit mission/vision statement. I won’t share it here, but if you’re an interested friend I’d be glad to e-mail it to you so I can have someone keep me on the path if I get off track. I sent Eric my personal vision today and I know he’ll hold me accountable if I get off the path.

How do you top of a unique event like Inspire Boston? The Jug Band! These fellas and ladies have been playing every Wednesday night at the Colonial Inn for the last 30 years. After the pizza party at LensProToGo about 20 people were left and evryone migrated back to the Colonial Inn for a last couple of hours of socializing. You had 30 wedding photographers whipping out everything from their cameras to mobile phones. One time when I Looked back there were literally 5 cameras and 10 phones up and at the go. The clarinetist is the a member of the White Heat Swing Orchestra and they played a wedding I shot last spring and were a blast to listen and watch. Nothing like everyone in the band in white dinner jackets to bring a little classic class back to a wedding reception.

These were all shot using a D700 at ISO 6400. Not the prettiest pictures in the world, but when you need the shot even in the worst light they deliver! As a photojournalistic wedding photographer I’m looking to capture small moments and nights like this are great practice for weddings and more importantly, they’re a lot of fun!

At Inspire Boston we had wonderful Robert Norman do a series of interview for his PHODCAST series that interviews wedding photographers. I believe he conducted 11 interviews and I had the unenviable job of following up Jim Collins, the CEO of Pictage. It was interesting to say the least. Let’s just say that technical difficulties required a second take, but the first take would have worthy of any highlight reel. I agree with Jim that it was probably divine intervention that the first one was unable to be recorded! You can only imagine the jokes about the “large white balls” of the microphones he was using.

There was quite the cast of characters coming in and out of the room and Robert kept his interviews on track and blocked all of us out as we socialized and chatted. A real professional at work.

Robert I’d love to do something more in-depth with you sometime. I Know everyone I spoke with felt the same way.

The reason that the first Inspire Boston Conference was so successful is that every single person that came brought something extra to the table such as Robert with his Phodcast series. You can find Phodcast on iTunes if you look for “Connecticut Phodcast”

A quick special thanks to Matt and Enna and to all the organizers. I’ll have a long blog post up tomorrow, but just wanted to thank you for having the vision to pull everyone together! As you can see we were working and planning all through the event. Matt and Enna are leading our last organizational session on Monday night.

I’d like to thank everyone that attended my session on Color Management. It was humbling to have such wonderful people in the session. Everyone that put their faith in attending a conference being held for the first time really made it a success. The wedding photographer community in New England truly is special.

Please e-mail me with any questions you might have. I’d be glad to answer them for you!

Here’s the CM INSPIRE Keynote

Here are some resources on purchasing color management hardware

Xrite for EyeOne Display 2 and Colormunki and the  ColorChecker Passport

Spyder for Spyder 3 Pro and Elite

Calibration Direct has best prices on the Spyder 3 Pro and Elite

Expodisc for custom white balance

Whibal for a great gray card

Meet Lola. She was OK with the first ten minutes of being photographed for an impromptu family photography session, but after that she hid behind her hat. The shot with the hat and missing teeth were my favorite. She had lost her teeth the month previous in a sliding accident when went down a hill and fell and knocked them out. I think she could be playing ice hockey from the Maine Black Bears in a few years.

Providence wedding photographer gets shot my very own paparazzo at this wedding reception in Providence, RI. This little guy was the hit of the reception. He acted as photographer, break dancer, stole a kiss from the bride, he did it all! I look for images like this during a reception because the bride and groom are so busy visiting guests and with all the commotion these type of moments are some of the best and they might have missed them half a room away.

This is the brood. I made the decision this year to make the blog a little more personal so I thought I’d introduce the kiddos today. Taylor is 14, Molly is 11, Ryan is 11, Mac is 10 and Zak is 3. The grades range from high school to elementary school with the little guy still at home.

Sometimes is all the craziness of their activities it seems endless, but then I look at the bottom two photographs. The one one the left was taken in July of 2005 and the one on the right this past July. Besides the remarkable changes they are multiplying! Zak makes his appearance!

Make sure you appreciate every minute that the kids are home. It’s hard to believe in three years our oldest will be headed out to college. I think his room will make an excellent jacuzzi room. Kidding everyone!

I wanted to do something to force myself out of my comfort zone and research shows that people that have goals written out accomplish significantly more. The one thing I have promised myself is that I will do more personal projects such as my post Katrina work in New Orleans. My B&W portfolio and Katrina Portfolio Website is one of my proudest accomplishments as a photographer. The images above are from another mino-portfolio of 12 portraits. So, why post this work when I’m talking about a 101 list? Well, when I did this project I had written goals and it’s one of the reasons why it was so personally successful for me.