My name is Mark Urbanski, and I want to thank you very much for checking out my website!! I'm an expert in the art of customer service, with over 20 years of retail experience, starting with the historic Eaton's Of Canada. I've been a self-taught amateur manga (japanese comics) artist from 1993-2006. I've dabbled in graphic design since 1999, and have focused solely on photography since 2004. I live here in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada (northwestern Ontario, for those who aren't sure where Thunder Bay is).
If anyone out there wants to help me make a living with my unique style of photography, that would be awesome and appreciated!
In 1994 I had created, up to that point, 3 characters for my fictional manga universe. I was about to introduce a few more, and wanted to name my universe something, since this was something that I wanted to appear to be at least semi-official looking. Many japanese comics have titles that seem like a couple of random words were thrown together that sound cute/interesting as a combination. So that's what I did with mine! From then on, any drawings I did with one of my characters in it, I added a logo for 'butterflyexpress' in it somewhere. When I created my website in 2003, I obviously had to decide what to call it. I wanted to honor my manga past, and keep using the name 'butterflyexpress' as my brand, but the domain 'butterflyexpress.com' was already taken at the time (it was a website about butterflies), and by then my creative works were more than just manga, so I threw a 'design' on the end, and the rest is history!
A lot of photographers like to process their photos in such a way, that the resulting photo looks like an embellished version of what the original shot must have looked like when they originally took it. Little things like saturating the colors or increasing the contrast a bit too much, excessive use of HDR, etc.
I have no trouble whatsoever with any of that, but I have no intentions at the present to do any of that with my work. When you look at my photos, I strive to make it look as close to how I saw it in person as possible, simple as that :) ! Do the colors and/or textures of the photo move you in some way when you look at it? Are you seeing something that you've never seen before, or haven't seen in a particular way before? That's what I try to accomplish with my work.
These are the songs that I currently have on the USB stick that's plugged into my car. Songs are listed in the order that I listen to them (which is alphabetically by song title).
I've used several types of cameras over the years...35mm SLR, medium format SLR and TLR, digital p+s, and digital SLR. Each one having it's own uses, charms, and strengths. Here is a list in case you're curious: Canon FT-QL, Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex IIa TLR (earlier version), Pentacon Six, Canon Powershot A70, Canon Powershot A620, Canon Powershot SX10, Canon Powershot SX40, Canon 60D, Canon Powershot SX70, Canon Powershot SX60, Panasonic Lumix FZ300, Canon Powershot SX50, and the Nikon P950.
Currently I shoot with my P950, and I'm loving it!
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When you visit the gallery, and see how each series of photos are named, you may wonder what they mean. I'm usually a very organized person. Details are important to me, structure with efficiency is important to me. I was taking so many shots, on so many outings, that I had to figure out a system to keep track of them all. So the 6-digit number used for each series is basically the day, month, and year that it was taken. So for example, June 12th, 2010 would be '061210'.
If you would like to see videos from some of my photography adventures, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.