Photographer Mary Ellen Mark RIP

[PhillyDave]

I just found out about her. Very compelling work. http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/...hia-photographer-Mary-Ellen-Mark-dies-75.html

 

[mjp]

Oh man.

She was a genius photographer. She picked up where Diane Arbus left off. We must have a dozen of her books.

She was in the Finding Vivian Maier movie recently and she looked great. Surprising news.

 

[PhillyDave]

I did not know who she was and she was a Philly native. If i were to pick up one of her books where would you suggest I begin?

 

[mjp]

Exposure

would be a good retrospective to start with. It collects a lot of different stuff. So does 25 Years

.

But she's got a lot of distinctly different phases as far as subject matter goes, so it depends on what piques your interest. Her 70s mental ward photos are pretty famous: Ward 81

. She photographed Indian circus performers(!): Indian Circus

. She was a photographer on film sets: Seen behind the scene

. Americans, Bombay brothels, twins...it goes on and on. She photographed tons of interesting stuff. There's a lot out there.

I first became aware of her work in the 80s when she made a documentary called Streetwise (with her husband at the time) about homeless kids in the Pacific Northwest. If you can see that anywhere it's really worth a look (it's also a book, it's out of print so it's expensive - like a lot of photography books).

 

[PhillyDave]

thanks. I found Streetwise on youtube. Is it the one set in Seattle?

 

[mjp]

That's it.

Normally I'd say, "Don't watch it on a crappy YouTube video!" but it's not readily available anywhere, so you've got to go with what you've got.

 

[PhillyDave]

BTW- Mary Ellen was, apparently, a friend of mine's teacher. Not bad.

 

[justine]

yeah this seemed so out of blue. i'm in so much sleep debt right now, so i totally cried when i read the news.

someone showed me 25 years when i was 16 and i was blown away - i'd never seen photography like that before.

my guess is that she probably had cancer, maybe a fast-progessing kind? 75 is not old these days.

 

[mjp]