We are so pleased with the quality we are achieving with the camera that we wanted to give you a little example.

We would like to thank Kevin Shoulder who implemented the system for us and Kevin Singer of Singer Photographic who brought the camera into the country.

A special thanks also to Des from Ochre Media who facilitated access to the viewpoint needed for the capture in this mailer.

Changed Access to MKDP Photography

We have negotiated a separate access to our premises in Wynberg. This will make it easier for our clients to reach us. We have not moved but access has now changed from the 2nd gate to the first gate in 5th Street. The gate is manned by a MKDP Photography staff member between 08h00 and 17h00 Monday to Friday. If anyone has experienced any disruption in the past few days we do apologise; we have now improved the system. Security has always been a priority and we are pleased that we have never had a security related incident at MKDP.

Best Wishes
Martin Kristiansen

When MKDP was launched nine years ago, we niched ourselves in what was then a very small segment of the photographic industry – digital. Very quickly and fortuitously, the quality delivered by digital cameras surpassed that of film and became the industry standard.

As digital imaging has grown and developed, we at MKDP have grown and developed with it. It has not been easy – or cheap – but we have always been at the forefront of digital imaging technology.

And so, it is with tremendous excitement that we await the delivery of our new Leaf Aptus 75s AFI medium format camera and Cambo large format monorail camera. The arrival of this equipment will revive traditional photographic skills which have been neglected since the ascendancy of the digital 35mm camera.

At MKDP we are committed to bringing our clients a top quality combination of the best equipment available in the world, traditional photographic skills and the inventiveness and efficiency of highly trained post production image specialists. These cameras represent an investment of R350 000 and demonstrates our confidence in the future of MKDP Photography and the photographic industry in South Africa.

This is just to say that we have implemented a solution and are able to keep shooting and image processing. Our back up system is working well and we have not yet missed a deadline nor cancelled a shoot since load shedding began.

Last year was a very good one for MKDP. We worked very hard to upgrade service levels and quality from the studio and we hope that this was noticeable to all that dealt with us.

We are very pleased to have picked up a few awards at the prestigious Fuji Prophoto awards and have included the images in this letter. I am most proud of the Gold awarded to Claire in the manipulation and retouching category. Our production team has worked very hard for years, mostly behind the scenes, and really deserves this recognition. If it were not for Johannes, Annemi, Cheryl, Claire, and Bryson this studio would not function at all.

Gold-Landscapes

Gold-manipulations

Silver-Documentary

Silver-Architectural

We have planned some exciting developments at MKDP for the year ahead and will be making a few announcements in this regard as soon as we have the details finalised.

Once again welcome back, thank you for your valued support and I hope the year ahead will be gentle and lucrative for us all.

Best wishes
Martin Kristiansen

Last thing you need right now is me banging on about the New Year and resolutions and all that so here are some pretty photos to look at.

Looking forward to seeing everyone and working with you all.

Martin Kristiansen

So how does it work?  It’s as easy as this. You send your furniture items to us, and we keep them safely in one of our two 300 m² storerooms, which have 24/7 surveillance by CCTV cameras. One of our specialist furniture photographers shoots the furniture according to your specifications. The images are then deep-etched, colour-corrected, and handed over to the production department for the “room creation.” 
 
Now the room really takes shape in line with your specific needs.  Once the setting is complete, we email it to you. You may then request any changes you feel necessary.  We can change the wall colour, the ornaments, the view out of the window, the floor… or even the entire setting.

The advantage of this form of photography is that we can do large quantities of units in a day, and you can get back to your busy work schedule while we do your room creations. Once you’ve approved the setting, we deliver it to you, on disk, in five different formats (to suit any and all printing requirements you may have). Included with the disk is a bound A4 booklet of the image, instructions for your designers on how to work with the various files, and a little something sweet for you to nibble on while admiring your new image.
 
This is what we at MKDP do. What we don’t do is charge you for the initial changes you may need. We don’t charge for emails, no matter how many we send, or how large you may need the files to be. We don’t charge to deliver your disk. If you spend the day with us, we don’t charge you for the lunch we provide. We also don’t complicate your invoice. You are charged a single price, with no hidden costs.

 

In summary, we at MKDP guarantee a warm and friendly service, and a first class photographic product.

I am sitting in the studio thinking about my December holiday. The problem is I had my December holiday in September. I had a good reason though.

I got married. September was a truly great month for me. Sam and I have lived together for almost 5 years and I do not exaggerate when I say that every year has been better than the previous one. We decided that a relationship that special deserved a special honeymoon; so we went to Tibet for 2 weeks.

We loved it. I mean it when I say that I have no words sufficient to describe the experience. I have added a few photos from the trip to make up for my lack of words. I hope you enjoy them and that they communicate something of what we saw.

With my December holiday behind me I am able to get back into the groove at work. We want to improve our service at MKDP and have decided on the following

We are not closing over December; I have already had my holiday anyway. We will be around for late work, early work and any other work at all.

The delivery and collection charge for minimum quantities of photography has been dropped.

We are reintroducing the 24 hour turnaround for packshots. We have improved our workflows, added more capacity, and are thus better able to cope with tight deadlines.

Kingsley has been sent for driving lessons and will soon have his drivers license. He will be promoted to the position of driver and we will then have 2 drivers on the road. We believe that this will greatly improve our service.

We really are doing our best to improve things at MKDP. Not that we feel we are so terrible but do we want to be better. We hope these changes assist you and make us a better company to deal with. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Best Wishes
Martin

Photography is the first of many steps when producing complete, high quality images.
Each image is accurately colour corrected according to a product sample or supplied colour values. We also make sure that those unsightly blemishes and spots are taken care of as well as all the technical tasks that allow the image to display or print properly in the targeted medium.
Drowning in deep-etching? Send it to us. We love it!

That is definitely not all we can do.
We start with a simple colour change, and move from there to creating digital room settings. These are realistic renderings of rooms and environments in which to place your product. Very handy when you don’t have an Italian villa for your couch shoot.
 

We manipulate images beyond the realms of reality. If you can imagine it, we can do it. It is only a question of time; feel free to challenge us.
 

We would like to introduce the three new professional photoshop operators that have joined the MKDP team, Steven, Annemi and Henk.
Production is now a strong team of 6 enthusiastic, creative people adding their unique value to the company.
Increasing the capacity of production allows us to supply you with consistently top quality work. It will also allow us to take on more work, so bring it on!

“I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.”
Garrison Keillor

In the studio
We have added an extra 300sqm to our facilities and have made a large investment in new generation Canon lenses.

Production and image processing
We will soon be joined by 3 high end people on the image processing side.

Delivery service about to double!
Kingsley Ramoshaba is nearing the end of his driver licence qualification. Having two drivers and two vehicles will enable us to deliver more efficiently! Good luck with the test Kingsley!

The CN project
The new CN catalogue is the largest photographic project that MKDP has worked on. We are proud to be associated with CN business furniture.Thank you CN for choosing MKDP as your supplier.
The room setting in the picture below was created by Bryson Stammer and photographed by Martin Kristiansen.

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
Management cannot be expected to recognise a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman” David Ogilvy