About Me – Mark Crocker

Based just outside of Bristol, England with my wife, Michelle, and two children, photography became a passion of mine over 20 years ago. If I think back, it was most probably our local village flower show that ignited the passion. I had a passing interest in photography owning a Minolta film SLR that I barely knew how to use. I entered some photographs, taken during our honeymoon in the year 2000, into our local flower show and won a cup. A few years later, for my birthday, Michelle arranged a workshop with Lee Frost in Northumberland (I was brought up in Newcastle). I remember Michelle laughing when she read the itinerary  “it says here that your have to meet at 5am, you will never do it”. I was never one for early mornings.

That workshop was the first of many with Lee and I have been lucky enough to have travelled the world with my camera from hot and humid climate of Vietnam to the remote frozen lands of Svalbard and Iceland.

I consider myself to be a landscape photographer with a bit of travel thrown in. But photography is about learning and I have started to do more wildlife photography with my first safari in 2024.

I have never been in a dark room, with my first introduction into photography being first film and then slide film, a fairly unforgiving medium. My approach is to get it right in camera, so I still use filters and don’t like to spend time in front of the computer processing. The joy is being in the right place at the right time, not in front of a computer screen.

I have been a Canon user since 2006, having gone through the whole 5D series. I was a late comer to the mirrorless revolution and have only just upgraded from my 5D mkIV to the R5. Both are brilliant cameras, but I don’t know why it took me so long to change. However, I was under the impression that mirrorless was lighter – my back and chiropractor bills are telling me otherwise. 

In April 2024 I made the bold decision to take early retirement from a paid job to become an impoverished artist.

My Gear

Taking after my grandmother I am a hoarder and still have all the equipment I have accumulated over the last 20 years. So this is just a list of the equipment that I use! 

  • Canon EOS R5 – this is my main body
  • Canon EOS R7 – this is my back up body
  • Canon EOS RP – full spectrum conversion for Infrared
  • Canon RF 14-35mm f/4 L IS
  • Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS
  • Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS
  • Canon 11-24 f/4 L – one of my favourite lenses for landscape
  • Canon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6L IS – a great travel lens, if a little heavy!
  • DJI Mavic 3 Classic 
  • 100mm Lee Filters (ND Grads, ND (2, 3, 4, 6, 10 and 15 stop)
  • 150mm Lee Filters (ND Grads, ND (2, 3, 6, and 10 stop) – for use with the 11-24. A 77mm filter ring also allows the filters to be used on the other lenses
  • Benro 35C Tortoise tripod and RRS BH-40 head for travel
  • King Joy carbon fibre tripod with RRS BH-55 head – it’s taller than me!
  • Gitzo Adventury 45L backpack – it’s big but very comfortable. 
  • Canon Pro 1000 for prints

Images for Sale

All images on my website are for sale. I have my own printing facilities, using a Canon Pro 1000 profession printer which allows for prints up to A2 in size. I only use Canon inks to ensure the best possible quality for all of my prints. I print on either Hahnemuhle Photo Rag or Innova Fine Art paper, giving a very high life expentancy of any print (in the order of 100 years)