On Wednesday evening Marko Dutka presented his talk on Professional Portraiture and took us through how his career, in the different areas of people photography, had progressed. He showed us a tremendous number of images illustrating the evolution of his photography starting with his early pictures of weight-lifters.
Many of his changes of direction (or should we say additional strings to his bow) seem to have come about almost accidentally. He had been focused on documentary photography when he was asked to take some wedding photos. Having explained that he did not do the formal style of photography usually associated with weddings, at that time, he was told that the couple wanted a more documentary style to record their happy day. Having done that wedding he found himself being asked to do others in the same way and became one of the early exponents of ‘Reportage’ photography in other areas as well.
From weddings Marko was led into Fashion photography and magazine work. He felt it was important to develop his own style and particularly developed his own way of lighting images as well as building a rapport with those he was photographing
He started working from his own portrait studio working with individuals, groups, families, children and pets as well as some boudoir photography. He did some celebrity and lifestyle work as well, showing us pictures of Tony Benn and Rick Wakeman amongst others. Some of those he has photographed have become friends and others have proved to be connections to further work, and an expanding client base, producing shots for brochures, promotions, and other business uses.
Although we had a few problems getting Zoom started at the beginning of the meeting Marko proved to be a fluent (in his own words ‘largely unscripted’) speaker with an interesting story to tell. The very large number of photographs he had to show us were wonderful pictures and the evening seemed to be much enjoyed by us all.