Hello,
Well I have led a very eclectic life and had fun doing it! I grew up in Hollywood, California. I went to Hollywood High School. I then went to California State University, Northridge where I majored in TV and Film production. When I was about 5 my Dad started working with Walt Disney and he became the Dean of Disney University. Every employee that works at Disneyland had to go through 1 week of training before they started working. When I was around 8 or 9 I remember that I could just roam all around Disneyland, including going behind the scenes. Everyone that worked there knew who I was because of my Dad. Below is a picture of my Mom and Dad at Disneyland.
My Dad is the one who popularized the term "Think Out Of The Box". This was a term they used at Disney to describe Walt and after my Dad left Disney he did speeches all over the world talking about Walt and Thinking Out Of The Box. In high school I made super 8 movies with many of my friends. One friend was Frank Darabont who wrote and directed "The Shawshank Redemtion" and created for TV "The Walking Dead". Picture below with Frank.
Another friend was Greg Melton who is now the Production Designer on "Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Below is a picture of us on the set of "The Mist".
After collage I worked on many commercials, TV shows and had my own video production company for awhile. Anyone recognize the doors in pic below?
I eventually moved to Florida, where I live now. I got into birding, bird photography and bird videos sort of by accident. My mother has always been a birder, so I would learn a few thing from her. One day when I was in the Everglades in Florida working on a short film, I saw a Hawk in a tree and decided to take it's picture as it flew and wow what a picture.
Since I lived right near a birding hot spot, "The Celery Fields" I started going there and taking pictures of birds. When I got a new camera that also took video, I started doing that. There aren't as many rules in bird videos as in taking a single picture that needs to be perfect. I eventually became a member of the Sarasota Audubon Society and did many bird videos that they use at their nature center and link to on their website. The National Audubon has used my pictures and videos for various projects. A few of my bird videos have been used on TV shows.
After that, one time when I was on a trip with my Dad in Atlanta, I got board and started seeing what I could take a picture of outside my hotel window. It was nighttime and I discovered that I could "play" with the lights and make cool patterns with my camera. I am very creative and this peaked my interest. So, I experimented for quite sometime till I came up with some pics that I thought were good.
The above picture was used in the TV show "House". I used my contacts in Hollywood to let set decorators know that I had unique pictures that they could use. I have a long list of TV shows and movies that my pictures have been used in. The picture below was used in "The Walking Dead" season 1 last episode.
So, that is just a brief look at some of the things I have done. I also travel a lot and my daughter was living in Alaska till just recently, so I will post some adventures from there. I hope you come watch my bird videos and try and to understand my crazy fine art pictures. I am excited to show a whole new audience my work.
Thank you, Mark Vance