I Love Photography
I blame my dad for that. My dad has been taking great pictures since the 1950s. He started with a Kodak Retna IIa 35mm if anyone can remember that. My first picture was taken with that camera, a picture of my dad.
My first camera was a Kodak 126 with those plastic film magazines. Since my dad developed all our film, it was “fun” for him to open the film magazine up; plastic shrapnel was all over the place. But I first learned how to develop film at that time. It is also the time I learned a whole bunch of new adjectives the nuns never taught me.
I made the move to digital in 1996 with a little Casio digital camera. I also started to host web sites at that time. It was a great place to post pictures. Over the next several years, I purchased a couple of Sony digital cameras, then I purchased my first DSLR when the Nikon D100 came out.
My wife has always been very interested in wildlife, one of the MANY things that I find attractive about her. She learned from her dad who has his falcon license, and has done a great job in teaching her about nature. Armed with her knowledge of nature and my interest in photography, we have spent a lot of our time taking pictures of the outdoors. This is reflected in my photos on this site.
This interest in imaging moved me towards Adobe Afer Effects. From this, I started to incorporate Cinema 4D. Now, many of my “photos” are entirely created in a computer. Many videos now include 3D digetal assets which are incorporated in my speciel effects.
My Home, My Work
We had a condo on the 54th floor in Chicago, which was great for photographing our favorite city. Now that we are married, we left our world in the sky for a house in the suburbs. We have a wooded acre right in the middle of a forrest, yet only 20 miles from Chicago. This has been great for photography!
My profession is computers. I manage several Information Technology sections at work; E-mail, voice communication, storage area networks, and others. But I love working with images. I think there are two types of “computer people”: engineers and artists. I have made a living as an IT engineer but want to be an IT artist. Maybe some day.
Other Things Too
I do have interests other than photography, outdoors, and computers. While those go well together, I also love sports. Hockey, baseball, and (American) football are favorite pastimes of mine. While I find myself playing much less than I did when I was younger, I still spend a lot (maybe too much) time as a spectator.
Another interest I have is cooking and baking - especially baking bread. I may have more books on baking bread than I do on photography! Many Sunday mornings I'll bake English muffins from scratch because it is easier and faster for me than going to a store. They taste better too. If we plan to have French toast for breakfast, I'll make a special cinnamon swirl bread the night before. Finally, it took me more than 20 years to get my pizza dough the way I like.
Since I’m now in IT management, I really do not work directly with computers anymore. So to stay up on technology, I have written and published a few iPhone apps. A couple of word games, a math game, and an app to help with home brewing.
And finally, I like beer, and really enjoy brewing it. I like to study beer as well as the history of beer (which is really why we are civilized), and how the history of beer and the history of people and our country are so connected. All beer is good, from light American Lite Lagers to double IPAs and barleywine. I have brewed most styles over the past 30 years. If you come by, make sure you are ready to try some beer since there are usually one or two beers on tap.
Sylvia and I have a little girl named Anastasia. Ana has provided, and will continue to provide, many photo opportunities for us for the rest of our lives!
-Mark Lopatka
First picture I ever took, a picture of my dad!
While you are out and about, visit my uncle Greg's site www.lopatka.net