WHAT ABOUT WHAT?

If you've come here looking for more work after visiting our website you're crazy....just kidding, you've come to the right place! This is a place where Mike and I can showcase some of our most recent work--if you're here and the last post is from months ago just remember that our priority is always keeping up with our event editing and getting images to our clients on time! Sadly, the blog, while we love it, doesn't always make it to the top of the to-do list. Rest assured, we'll be back, we always are! In the meantime feel free to get in touch via our contact form!

Q&A WITH M&K

We’d like to keep this page a running commentary of sorts…so if you come up with a question that you really want to have answered…our favorite food?  Boxers or briefs?  Just ask…we’ll answer anything (I think?)!

Q: Why MKD?
A: Well, he’s Mike, I’m Kate, and we’re the Duvals.  I’ve been an initial girl since I was little with nicknames from my dad—he called me Kahdiba which is KDB phonetically and he was Tufuba (TFB).  So, I guess MKD sounded better than Emkaydee Photography which was a little too “South Parky” for us, Mmmmkay!?

Q: Why photography?
Kate: It’s comes easy to me.  You know when you take a foreign language and you know you’re getting someplace when you wake up in the morning and think, “Ahh, buenos dias, vida,” (ok, so it didn’t really happen for me in Spanish class, but I always dreamed it would)  Ok, so my point, you wake up thinking in THAT language.  Well, I think in pictures.  I walk down the street and frames things in my mind, I see light pouring through the trees and want to run and grab a camera.
Mike: Cause I suck with a pencil.  I love art but never got past the tracing paper page.  It was something I could do, and do well…and I really like that I can have some geeky techie aspect.  I like anti-alising filers and bayer patterns.
Kate: And he’s always liked expensive things…and if you’re in the market for a “fancy” camera you know they aren’t cheap!

Q: How do you decide to make something black and white?
Kate: Sometimes the expression is there, but there is a distracting color going on…sometimes there is something in the images that just screams old school.   Sometimes there are two of one image just a little bit different so instead of getting rid of one we make it black and white.
Mike: I feel like people look at black and white a bit longer so for a WOW black and white shot I look for high contrast shots with lots of interesting lines or angles going on.

Q: Do you like your photo being taken?
Kate: I like having “good” pictures of me, but I hate getting there…there are flaws that we all see in ourselves the are magnified in pictures.  Half of my face smiles “more” than the other so I know my “good” side and you’ll often see pictures of me from that side.  I have a crooked tooth, too, that I try to hide…but without the photos from my life I feel like I would be missing so many memories.
Mike: Not generally.  No.  That’s why I hold the camera.


Q: How stressful is your life on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest?

Kate: I dunno, not too high…but not too low either.  We’re raising three little kids, running a business, running a household.  We don’t get enough sleep…but we have so much that counters that.  We have each other, we do what we love, we have our kids.  So, maybe 5…middle of the road and I know it could be much worse.  And let’s not remember that it isn’t a constant 6…there are definite 10 moments and a few 1 moments mixed in where we sit with a bowl of popcorn, a fuzzy blanket, and a Disney movie with the kids and zone out.
Mike: (Hesitate) Um.  7.


Q: Who made your new website?

It’s from a company called IntoTheDarkroom and I am in love with the fact that you can now see it on your phone, your ipad, your computer…ahhh technology.  I was having a heart attack knowing so many people probably weren’t even staying on our page since they were on their phone and just couldn’t see it…way to lose clients left and right, to not be up to date with HTML 5 and leave Flash in 2008.

Q: Who made your blog?
It’s also from IntoTheDarkroom…it uses WordPress as a platform and makes everything super easy to customize and doesn’t empty your wallet….love love love how simple and easy it is to make our own!

Q: What were you guys like in High School?
Kate: I wore really big jeans and tight shirts with platform sneakers.  I liked bright clothes and science classes.  I wore a pony tail in a scrunchie almost everyday and played on the softball team as a catcher.  I wasn’t “friends with everyone” but had an awesome group of friends!  I drove a Ford Tempo and listened to The Bare Naked Ladies and Guster while driving around my tiny little hometown.
Mike: Was I cool? Absolutely not.  Was I cool enough to survive?  Yes…just barely.  I was the kid with the camera…video and still…and my friends were the guys on skateboards.

Q: What setting do you have your camera on?
We’re both shooting all manual all the time.  Manual exposure, shutter speed and aperture…manual ISO, manual WB, manual flash settings…we love Nikon, but we don’t let the camera think for us.  They are smart, but we’re smarter!