1. CESCA HAIG
Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Research of other
photographers work
2. Mary-Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark was born March 20, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, portraiture, and
advertising photography.
She first began photographing with a Box Brownie camera at age nine. she has
a BFA degree in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, and
a Masters Degree in photojournalism from that university's Annenberg School for
Communication in 1964.
Her photography has addressed such social issues as homelessness, loneliness, drug
addiction, and prostitution. She works primarily in black and white.
Mark became a unit photographer on movie sets, shooting production stills for films
including Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant (1969), Mike Nichols' Catch-
22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse
Now (1979) among her earliest.
Her photography has addressed such social issues as homelessness, loneliness,
drug addiction, and prostitution.
3.
4. This photograph was taken in December, 1987 when Mary Ellen Mark
spent a week following a homeless family for a photography project to be
feature in LIFE accompanying an article wrote by Anne Fadiman.
The photo is of the oldest child in the family, Chrissy, aged 8. In this
photograph you can see that Chrissy is clearly upset by something, she is
the main focal point of the image, behind her is a window, not much can be
seen outside of it.
The picture is in black and white, I think that this makes anyone who is
looking at this photograph look more closely at the features of the girls face,
they are not distracted by anything else.
5. Mary Ellen Mark is a portrait photographer, she mainly
works in black and white, using classic Kodak Tri-X film.
6. I like this photograph by Mary Ellen Mark because of how it shocks the viewer, it
is of a young girl named Amanda and her cousin Amy. Amanda is the girl stood
up in the paddling pool, she is only nine years old yet she is smoking and
mimicking actions of someone much older than herself.
This image is in black and white, I think this is effective because a viewer isn’t
distracted by anything in the background as it is all quite plain and dull, whereas
the two girls and the pool are much lighter, drawing your eyes to them.
I think that images like this make a viewer want to find out more about the
subjects and who they are. Something that I would like to happen with my
photography.
7. I think Mary Ellen Mark is good with her photography because she connects them all up, She
photographs different people over a few years. These are a set of pictures of a called girl
known as ‘Tiny’ Mary Ellen Mark met Tiny when she was just 13 and has gone back to
photograph her throughout her whole life. Mark has offered to help her out over the years
and has done the same with a few of her other subjects that she has photographed.
I think the relationships that she develops with her subjects help her with her ability to
capture peoples emotions, because they know her and are honest with her about what is
going on with their lives, this makes the images stand out more and means that people who
view the images can get a real understanding of the people in the images.
As she photographs people throughout their lives, anyone who follows her photography can
see them and how they change throughout the years.
