Assignment #3

Photographer Essay

Mary Ellen Mark was born March 20, 1940 in Elkins Park, in suburban Pennsylvania and began to show interest in photography at the age of nine. Mark was head cheerleader and showed promise in art and painting. She received a bachelor of fine arts in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania. She then collected a masters degree in photojournalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. After school, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey for several months. During her time in Turkey, Mark produced her first book, Passport, released in 1974. She later traveled to Germany, Greece, Italy, England, and Spain.  After settling down in New York she followed and photographed the riots against the Vietnam War, the women’s liberation movement and the transvestite culture. Marks photography became known for addressing social issues such as prostitution and homelessness. Children became an iconic subject for Mary Ellen Mark. Marks best known work is Ward 81, where Marks spent six weeks with patients in the women's ward of the Oregon State Hospital. In 1981, Marks spent three months with the prostitutes of Bombay, befriending them and capturing their daily life.

Mary Ellen Mark published 18 photography books and contributed to Life, Rolling Stones, The New York Times and Vanity Fair. After a string of photography agencies she opened her own in 1988, teaching workshops at the International Center of Photography in New York, as well as the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Mary Ellen Mark died on May 25, 2015 in Manhattan at the age of 75 or a blood illness called myelodysplastic syndrome.

I first saw Marks photography style while researching techniques for black and white photography. The photos were so ominous and vague, I loved that you could make up your own story to go with the photo. The subjects are so serious most of the time that I began to feel that all her subjects had the same pain or ideas in their heads. I really admire her risk to photograph such controversial things in the 60’s-70’s. It really showed America what was happening under their watch. I would like to contribute to American photography that way.

Assignment #2