Rangefinder Magazine
April 2006

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Kenneth Morgan: Lynne Eodice
The Art of the Engagement Portrait

Armed with the conviction that wedding photography is as much business as it is creative, Mark and Joseph Ellis work together to deliver great wedding photography packages to their customers through their company, Joseph Mark Photography.

Mark comes from a background of advertising and desktop publishing, while his son, Joe, got his start as a newspaper photojournalist. Joe says his interest in photography began “When I stole my dad’s camera (a Canon AE-1) and started taking pictures in middle school.” His proud father adds, “He took some award-winning pictures with a 45–210mm lens.” Joe’s love for photography grew as a high school senior in Oregon, when he was given an opportunity to shoot pictures of the school’s basketball team winning a state championship. He shot pictures alongside photojournalists from The Oregonian and other local press photographers. “It was a turning point for me, getting images published for the first time,” Joe recalls. He later became a business major at Oregon State University, and worked as a photographic intern for the Corvallis Gazette- Times and Albany Democratic Herald newspapers. He also shot pictures for “the best college newspaper in the country—The Daily Barometer. It was a great paper to work for,” Joe asserts. “And this was a school without a journalism program.”

Teaming Up

After Joe graduated with a B.A. in business administration, his best friend—a writer for the Salt Lake City Tribune—urged Joe to photograph his wedding. “He didn’t want anything posed except a few family pictures,” Joe says. “During the wedding I fell in love with the idea of working with couples to tell the story of one of the biggest days of their lives. Weddings are so much like my favorite assignments as a photojournalist—‘day in the life’ type of assignments and sports. I love situations where you try to fold into the story and see creatively without interrupting [the event]. Weddings are also like sports photography, because nothing is repeated and you have to be on your toes all day. It’s exhausting, but so worth it when great pictures come together.”

Inspired to start his own business, Joe approached his father about becoming a partner. “When I discovered that there was a market outside of newspapers where I could photograph the way I like and work with couples to create memories that they value so much, I was hooked.” As Mark wanted to be in business with his son, he “jumped at the idea,” and they started a business plan. Although they’re business partners today, the father and son each live in different states. Mark lives in Ojai, a beautiful area in central California where he and his wife moved for his wife’s career opportunity several years ago. Mark views it as “serendipitous,” because nearby Santa Barbara is a major wedding market. Joe, on the other hand, resides in Texas, and has a 2000-square-foot studio in downtown Dallas. “Because we’re in two locations, we each try to do everything,” notes Joe. “But if you were to break it down, I specialize in shooting, editing and retouching, while Dad makes the business decisions, and does album design and advertising/marketing.”

Mark says, “We’re also involved with June Weddings, Inc. in Dallas, a great organization of wedding professionals.”

A Personal Style

According to Joe, “We see our business broken down to two primary categories—engagement and wedding portraits.” He spends a lot of time with the couple in advance. “On engagement- portrait days, I get to exercise my directing skills, and I enjoy working with a couple to create really stylized images,” Joe explains. “Most of our couples want a bridal and an engagement portrait, so I have a lot of opportunities to work with each couple and practice photographing them. Then, on the day of the wedding, I just try to capture the moment. My working style on the wedding day is very personal, meaning that I photograph from a very close proximity. I tend to wade into the scene and shoot it close-up, rather than stand back and watch from the outside. I want clients to remember their wedding day and what it was like to be in the moment—not that I’m ‘creating’ a picture. Everything I do on a wedding day, aside from the family portraits, is in real time. I don’t direct, I don’t ask them to repeat anything, and I work with whatever comes naturally. It takes a lot of patience, but a wedding day is my time to find photographs—not to orchestrate them.”

Mark adds, “There are some fantastic photographers who shoot planned portraits. We capture the memory or feeling the couple shared, rather than concentrate on some technique we’re doing. A pre-wedding engagement and bridal shoot enables us to become closer to our clients. Our weddings are photographed from a documentary perspective. But we don’t take a ‘fly on the wall’ attitude.” Mark and Joe offer their clients all-day wedding coverage, about 10–12 hours worth. “We start with the bride getting ready and sometimes stay until midnight,” Mark exclaims. They also shoot about 40 to 45 weddings a year—70% in Dallas and 30% in California, according to Joe.

Photo Equipment

Joe uses a lot of flash in his images. “I’ll push a little fill-light or make it my main light. The flash is rarely mounted on the camera, but held in my hand attached to a cord instead, or being triggered wirelessly using PocketWizards.” He says he loves directional light and working with shadow—or creating it—to suit his purpose.

“For a long time we were Nikon shooters: D1X, D100, D70, and D2X camera bodies, with a staple of lenses; 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkor, 20mm f/2.8D, 35mm f/2D, 50mm f/1.4D, 28-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkor, 85mm f/1.4D, 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom- Nikkor, and an 8mm fisheye were in our primary kit, along with eight SB-100s and a number of digital battery packs,” Joe points out. Lately, however, they’ve been testing the Olympus E-System “because of the incredible optics they’re producing.”

Joe currently uses the Olympus E-1 with the 150mm f/2, 7–14mm f/4, 50mm f/2 macro, and 11–22mm zoom, along ]with the FL-50 flash unit. “We’re really looking forward to trying their new zoom lenses, which should be in our hands shortly, including the 35–100mm f/2 and the 14mm f/2. Understand that the Olympus system has a 2X relationship to 35mm, so the zoom lenses would be the equivalent of 70–200mm f/2 and 28–70mm f/2!”

Sharing Proofs with Clients

All of the wedding packages that Joseph Mark Photography offers include proofs and a website for online proof viewing and ordering, according to Joe. “We tried going proofless for almost a year. It worked for the most part, but we were fielding too many calls from parents and grandparents of the bride and groom who had trouble with the Internet. We also felt as though it hurt our reprint orders because fewer people were viewing the images, or viewing them as we intended. So now everybody gets a very large stack of 4x6-inch proofs.” They also offer client websites, which are posted online for six to eight months on average.

“We’ve extended it for brides many times because they often check the site daily for a year or more,” says Joe. When asked if they shoot images of subjects other than weddings and portraiture, Joe replies, “My dad and I are on a mission to photograph all the national parks in the country. But we’ve been so busy with our business that these plans have been slow going the last couple of years. Our last trip was a week of river rafting through the Grand Canyon.”

Both father and son also pay homage to WPPI. “WPPI will share so much with you. It’s a network of people that want to elevate the status of wedding photographers. Their educational opportunities and dedication to various photographer’s skill levels is admirable,” says Mark.

To see more of Mark and Joseph Ellis’ work, visit their website, www.josephmark photo.com.