“I’m interested in reality, and I’m interested in survival. I’m interested in people who aren’t the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story.”
Photographer Mary Ellen Mark
“We do not take pictures with our cameras, but with our hearts and minds.” Photographer Arnold Newman
The Damn family from the book, “Mary Ellen Mark: An American Odyssey 1963-1999”
About 15-20 years ago I had the good fortune to sit at a dinner table with two legendary photographers; Mary Ellen Mark and Arnold Newman. Actually, it was a picnic table if I recall correctly at what is now known as the Maine Media Workshops in beautiful Rockport. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I cherished the opportunity and the conversation.
Mary Ellen Mark died last week at age 75 and was known for her work as a social documentary photographer. The first photograph by Mark that I ever saw was in 1987 of the Damn family in Los Angeles. I can’t accurately describe how hard that photo hit me at the time, but it was powerful and haunting. I was living in LA and working as a photographer/cameraman and knew that there was something special in her work.
Only later did I find out that she had an MFA in Photojournalism from the University of Pennsylvania, and even by ’87 had traveled the world as a working photographer (Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, New York Times), and had been a unit photographer on many movies including Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. And I also knew in the photo essay of the Damn family that she had captured another side of greater LA that I had seen in my daily travels throughout Southern California but that I’d never dared to photograph.
This was an era before a barrage of images that would come in the digital and internet age where it’s really hard to reflect on an image for more than five seconds. When we allowed Life Magazine, the LA Times, and others to confront us with the realities of life without expecting to see it turned into a reality TV show.
“What I’m trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood, whether in China or Russia or America‑photographs that cross cultural lines. So if the project is about street performers, it touches those little things and whimsies we’re all interested in -animals and people and anthropomorphic qualities. If it’s about famine in Ethiopia, it’s about the human condition all over the world: It’s about people dying in the streets of New York as much as it’s about Ethiopia. I want my photographs to be about the basic emotions and feelings that we all experience.”
Mary Ellen Mark ASMP Bulletin interview in 1991
On her website there is a list of 18 books centered around her photography. Along with her many accomplishments and awards Mark received the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House. And as a fitting end to a post blog centered around screenwriting, Mark’s IMDB credits include ties to screenwriter John August in that she was a still photographer on Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and received a story credit on American Heart which starred Jeff Bridges. What a life, what a legacy of images.
Related Posts:
Ansel Adams, Zack Arias & Unicorns
Art & Fear
Screenwriter as Poet/Journalist/ Director
40 Days of Emotions
‘Shelter from the Storm’ (Dylan)
Writing Quote #16 (Joan Didion) I don’t know if Mary Ellen Mark and writer Joan Didion were friends (or even met) but they seemed sisters linked creatively and in spirit.
Related links:
Mary Ellen Mark: An American Odyssey 1963-1999
Mary Ellen Mark/NPR
Mary Ellen Mark, CNN Money
Mary Ellen Mark, Photographer and Force of Nature/NY Times
Screenwriting from Iowa 