Mary Ellen Mark
by Skip Cohen
This video interview with Mary Ellen Mark is one of my most favorites in Profoto's Icon Series. It was one of the most watched videos in the archives of my earlier blog and it's well worth watching again, if you've seen it already.
I first met Mary Ellen when I joined Hasselblad in 1987. At that time she had only published five books. Today there are 17 in her collection - each an amazing body of work. There have been solo and contributing exhibitions of her work all over the world with images published in just about every magazine any of us could think of.
She's a remarkable photographer, artist, educator and writer and definitely somebody you need to follow. After the video, wander over to the podcasts and listen to the conversation I had with her last year. Just click on the archives button and then scroll down.
In this podcast Mary Ellen revealed how she's able to capture such intense emotion in every image. I asked her to talk about why she has students shut off their LCD screens in any of her workshops. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but essentially it's to keep looking for the strongest image. When we look at the screen and think we've got the shot, we let go of the scene, when in reality there might still be more to happen. How do we know we really captured the decisive moment if we've accepted what we already have? Mary Ellen obviously does a better job explaining it than I'm doing here, but you get the point.
This video interview with Mary Ellen Mark is one of my most favorites in Profoto's Icon Series. It was one of the most watched videos in the archives of my earlier blog and it's well worth watching again, if you've seen it already.
I first met Mary Ellen when I joined Hasselblad in 1987. At that time she had only published five books. Today there are 17 in her collection - each an amazing body of work. There have been solo and contributing exhibitions of her work all over the world with images published in just about every magazine any of us could think of.
She's a remarkable photographer, artist, educator and writer and definitely somebody you need to follow. After the video, wander over to the podcasts and listen to the conversation I had with her last year. Just click on the archives button and then scroll down.
In this podcast Mary Ellen revealed how she's able to capture such intense emotion in every image. I asked her to talk about why she has students shut off their LCD screens in any of her workshops. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but essentially it's to keep looking for the strongest image. When we look at the screen and think we've got the shot, we let go of the scene, when in reality there might still be more to happen. How do we know we really captured the decisive moment if we've accepted what we already have? Mary Ellen obviously does a better job explaining it than I'm doing here, but you get the point.
