I started pursuing the visual arts at an early age — drawing pictures of cars, airplanes, and boats in First Grade. Under the influence of an unusually talented cousin, I began to branch out to different media — watercolor pencils at first, then pastel chalks, etc. I taught myself a bit about figure drawing from a small book given to me at around twelve. I got some, albeit little, encouragement from Art subject teachers in school, but absorbed on my own all I could about technique and art history along the way.
Then, at about 15, I inherited a Kodak Pony camera (a 35mm rangefinder) and a darkroom setup from an uncle and I was instantly hooked. Frustrated with the limitations of the rangefinder mechanics, I bought my first SLR — an East German knockoff second- or third-hand in a seedy downtown camera store. That lasted me less than a year, when I put my first Nikon product on layaway. A real, pro-level SLR! I was so proud! It had a black body (in an age when most SLRs were chrome), as I intended to shoot stage photography and needed to be able to be invisible backstage.
Being able to develop my own film and prints gave me an advantage in that a normally-expensive hobby was less-so — important for an impecunious teenager, dependent on spotty after-school jobs for pocket money. It also taught me a good deal about the art of photography from a technical standpoint — a body of knowledge that (unbeknownst to me at the time) was to stand me in good stead in my later career.
Wanting to get published in any way I could, I did my time in the high school newspaper and yearbook staffs. At the end of my senior year, on an outing of the yearbook staff — to shoot pictures for our own listing in that year’s annual — I dropped my beloved camera and sheared the lens mount off of it. That would have seemed to be the end of my career as a photographer.
In my mid-20s, I got a job in the entertainment industry, working at a local theater and concert venue. At the same time, I was also working for a taxi company as a dispatcher and consequently wasn’t as poor as I had been in my teens. So I had enough change rattling in my pocket to buy a second-hand Nikkormat — Nikon-made, down-market SLR. I no longer had my darkroom setup, but film processing was cheap and fast and I could live with it. I never went anywhere with the camera directly jobwise, but … one day, my boss at the theater invited me along to a printing company where, it turned out, they had a little sideline doing print work for the concert business — tickets, posters, handbills, and …. backstage passes.
I was excited by the product line, and — as the joke goes — it was show business, so I signed on. That was November of 1980.
I started out as an office boy, but was quickly “promoted” to running the thing, and eventually, production managing the whole place. When my former boss bailed, I was left holding the bag. I held it for 35 years.
Over those years, I helped build the business to the world’s leader, producing backstage passes, and later, pass-based access control systems, for the touring concert industry. At first, I only sold the things. Then I had to art direct. Then I had to design. And production-manage the whole business (learning as I went). My early experience and training — as informal as it was — stood me in good stead. Instead of drowning, I was able to swim, though over my head a lot of the time. And, over the years, my skills developed and enhanced until I was Mark at Otto. The go-to guy. We did work for 85-90% of the top fifty acts in any given year.
Later on, my clients came to rely on me, personally, more-and-more until I was an integral part of their image team and my work was at once both freer and more tightly-supervised by the management of the acts we were working for. In the early 2000s, I was tapped to do a DVD cover for the Moody Blues, which, unfortunately, was never used. But the band framed a print of the illustration and put it up in their UK Office. That was a big ego-boost. As I describe my career at Otto, I spent 35 years using photography — my own and others’ — designing backstage passes for the world. Loved it.
I can’t show you any of my work from that period. It was all done “for-hire” and Otto owns the copyrights. But, if you search Google images on “Otto backstage passes” you will see what we did over the years. More than half of it will be my work.
Since I retired from Otto, I have been traveling the Midwest, shooting images of things that excited my aesthetic sense. This store is meant to be a place for you to share in that excitement. I hope you may find something here that will excite you as well. Welcome.
Since I retired in 2015, I have been traveling around the Midwest and shooting pictures of things that interest me and excite my artist’s aesthetic sense. The store (link above) is for you to be able to share in my excitements. I hope you find things to enjoy here and enhance your environment.
Welcome to my world. Enjoy!