DAY 193

FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS

Mary Ellen Mark (1940–)

PICTURES FROM THE EDGE

For over 40 years, Mary Ellen Mark has traveled the world extensively, searching for the common threads of human experience. While she tends to focus primarily on the fringes of cultures worldwide—from brothels in Bombay to teenage runaways in Seattle—she has also photographed celebrities and public figures, such as David Bowie and Mother Teresa. Each of her eclectic collection of subjects is given equal treatment. Her work is edgy and gritty, made even more pronounced by her use of TRI-X black and white film. She does not shoot digital.

After moving to New York City in the late 1960s, Mark took to the streets, documenting Vietnam War demonstrations and the advent of the Women’s Liberation movement. She began her professional career as a still photographer on a variety of movie sets, documenting the most notorious set of all time—Apocalypse Now. Mark has published photo essays and portraits in Life, The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair, and she has created ad campaigns for Barnes and Noble, Coach Bags, Hasselblad, and Nissan.

Mary Ellen Mark is one of the most eminent photographers of this era and has received numerous awards to prove it. They include three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Photographer of the Year Award from the Friends of Photography, the Victor Hasselblad Cover Award, and two Robert F. Kennedy Awards. —GC