Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark’s awards and grants from the formal photography establishment are numerous. She was presented with the Cornell Capa Award by the International Center of Photography in 2001. She has also received the Infinity Award for Journalism, an Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and a Walter Annenberg Grant for her book and exhibition project, America. Other awards include the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Matrix Award for outstanding woman in the field of photography, the Dr. Erich Salomon Award for merit in the field of journalistic photography, and three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Mark has published sixteen books, including Passport (Lustrum Press, 1974): Ward 81 (Simon & Schuster, 1979); Falkland Road (Knopf, 1981, and Steidl, 2006); Mother Teresa’s Mission of Charity in Calcutta (Friends of Photography, 1985), Indian Circus (Chronicle, 1983, and Takarajimasha, 1993), Twins (Aperture, 2003), Extraordinary Child (The National Museum of Iceland, 2007), and Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon, 2008). Her book Prom will be published in 2012 by Getty Publications. At the same time, a film about prom by her husband, Martin Bell, will be released. In a poll conducted in 1999, American Photo Magazine readers named Mary Ellen Mark as one of the greatest living photographers. While fine-art photography collectors are usually more interested in the opinions of museum curators and gallery directors, this poll helps to demonstrate the broad appeal of the work of Mary Ellen Mark, whose photographs are known and respected by both the popular audience and the fine-art collector audience. Mark is known as a sensitive yet incisive documentarian with bodies of work on such diverse subjects as patients in the maximum security division of a state hospital, performers in circuses in India and Mexico, street children in Seattle, prostitutes in Mumbai, disabled children in Iceland, and high school prom-goers in the United States. She is also a celebrity portraitist and photographer on film sets.

Kamla Behind Curtains with a Customer, Falkland Road, Bombay, India, 1978

How did you become interested in photography?
I’m from Philadelphia, and I went to the University of Pennsylvania. I studied painting and art history at Penn. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated. I didn’t want to be a painter because I didn’t think I had that gift. Also, I didn’t want the isolation of it, and I didn’t have the passion for it, either. You have to have a passion for something to do it really well. So I was very confused when I graduated from college. Then I was offered a scholarship to go to the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, so I thought, “Why not?” I went there, but I didn’t know what I was going to study. I considered filmmaking. Then I thought, “Why don’t I just see what photography’s like? Let me just see if I like it.” I had always loved photographs, from the time I was a child. I used to spend hours looking at photography books and old photographs and old scrapbooks. I had had little Brownie cameras, and I’d taken pictures of my friends. From the moment I picked up the camera at Annenberg, I was obsessed. It’s what I wanted to do. I knew it, immediately. It was like a revelation. I was about twenty-two when I started, and I was lucky I found it when I was young. When I look back, the love of photography was something that was always there — I can remember the books I looked at, and the pictures I looked at, and things that I was just so curious about when I was a child.

Young Prostitute Crying in Olympia Café, Falkland Road, Bombay, India, 1978

What was it like, trying to start making a living in photojournalism?
It was very different then. At that time, there were so many more opportunities for documentary work. I’ve always used magazines as grants — as ways of doing my own work — for funding projects that I wanted to do. So a lot of my own personal work comes out of things that I convinced magazines to let me do, and I spent longer periods of time on them myself; for example, the work I did in Calcutta with Mother Teresa — I went back again on my own. Even with the circus pictures in India — Life Magazine paid for part of it. Then I got a grant to make up the rest of the financing. It was a different time. It’s so changed now. I’m really glad that I made the decision not to become a commercial photographer. What I have now is so much more valuable than what I would have had, had I been a commercial photographer, had I gone into fashion or solely celebrity photography. I would not have had the archive I have.
One of the ways I make my living is photographing on film sets. That has changed too, because earlier I could take really good documentary pictures on film sets. I feel fortunate. I got great pictures of Fellini, and of Truffaut, and of others. They’re real pictures; they’re not just the sort of plastic set up things that you see now. Most film-set pictures all look so uniform now. I was able to work at a time when I could take real pictures. I’m not putting digital down. I think it has value for a certain number of things, but after a digital photograph is taken, all things look uniform because most of the work is in post-production. There’s somebody else changing the picture. I’m an analog photographer, and I will be till I die, because I don’t believe in someone else altering the pictures. When I started my career, it was a different time, a time when people really appreciated photography and when magazines needed the photographs, and advertisers needed the magazines. Now it’s all about advertisers.

As you’ve been saying, funding for photojournalism has gotten more limited since you started. Do you think that’s due to a change in our society’s values? Or is it strictly because of the economy getting smaller?
It’s about both the economy and, in a sense, a change of values. So much is about the bottom line, the money. Publications don’t have the money to send you on a long story that’s not going to have some sort of a sensational news value. They won’t let you go spend two weeks with a family that lives in a car anymore, or just go to Calcutta for a month, or follow a group of prostitutes in India for three months. They’ve changed that, and it’s those types of assignments that gave me my personal work. I’m not really a photojournalist. I’m more of a documentarian. I’ve never been a great news story photographer — doing reportage that tells a story. My photographs have always been about single images. That’s how I’ve managed to collect images that people would buy. I try to make iconic single images. That’s always been my goal.

Mother Teresa Feeding a Man at the Home for the Dying, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, India, 1980

What makes an image iconic? To you?
You know something? I can’t answer that. I’ve thought about that. If I knew, I’d have many more of them.

You have already made many of them.
Not as many as I’d like to have — they’re really hard to make! I can name an iconic image: I think one of the great iconic images is André Kertész’s photograph of the Satiric Dancer. It’s a photograph of a woman on a couch, and she’s in a very odd position. It’s iconic. I don’t know why, but it’s a great photograph.

1. Eugene Smith’s photographs of the Spanish Village or many of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs are iconic. That’s what made these photographers so great — they were able to make so many iconic images. It’s just a perfect image that touches something. An iconic picture can be a terrifying image. It can be something as horrible as Larry Burrows’s picture from the Vietnam War of a soldier being carried off. Or it can be a beautiful portrait by Irving Penn. It’s just something that hits all our senses at the same time. It’s impossible to answer the question. It’s a mystery. It’s like what makes a painting great, or a poem great…I don’t know.

Who are some photographers who have influenced your work?
From the very beginning, I looked at people like Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Helen Levitt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Irving Penn — I love his work, as well as Richard Avedon’s early work and Elliott Erwitt’s. I think Erwitt’s photographs are beautiful.

Would you say they’re still your favorites?
Well, there are a lot of contemporary artists whose work I like a lot as well, like Graciela Itúrbide, a Mexican photographer. I like Eugene Richards, Sally Mann…

When you’re going into a new situation, do you go with something specific in mind that you are looking for? Or are you just open to the moment that might call to you?
I’m open to the moment. When I was photographing the homeless family in the car — the Damm family — I knew that one picture had to be of them in the car. I had to figure out how I was going to make that image. I knew I couldn’t be inside the car; I had to be outside the car. I thought about it a lot beforehand, but I was open to the moment. When I was photographing the circus, and the trainer wrapped the elephant’s trunk around his head, I thought, “Wow, that’s so great,” but it wasn’t my idea; it was his. Sometimes people just bring an idea to you. I’m all for people bringing ideas to me. I’m not a conceptualist. I’m very bad at conceptualist photographs. I prefer what people bring to me.

Heather and Kelsey Dietrick, Twinsburg, Ohio, USA, 2002

For fifteen years you’ve been going to Mexico at intervals to teach photography workshops. Do you yourself learn anything from the experience of teaching?
I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been teaching, by looking at other people’s photographs — by editing their work.

Why did you choose the city of Oaxaca in Mexico?
First of all, I love Mexico, but then I’m absolutely attached to Oaxaca. For me, it’s the most beautiful city in Mexico. The facilities there are fantastic; they are provided by Francisco Toledo. He’s one of my favorite artists. He’s like Picasso: an artist who does everything — he’s a painter, sculptor, everything. He sells his work and then he puts all of the money back into the city. Oaxaca is a beautiful atmosphere to teach in.

You teach workshops all over the world. Why do you teach?
It’s part of how I support myself. Also, I love working with young people; it can be inspiring, especially if they’re good. I can teach them how to take pictures. It’s hard to teach someone to be brilliant, but I can teach them to be good. I am very proud of a book that we published of fifteen years of photographs by the class in Oaxaca. You won’t believe the amazing pictures they took. The students in Oaxaca are all ages; they’re from fifteen to sixty-five. Teaching is interesting, and it’s one of the ways I support myself — by teaching, a little lecturing, and selling work. Also, I do some work for film companies; making portraits used for advertising; and I do some magazine assignments. The magazine assignments have really gotten to be so little now, primarily because I’m an analog photographer and I’m going to remain that way. I also do annual reports.

When you began teaching, everyone was shooting film because there was no digital. Nowadays at least some of the students must be shooting digital.
Half of them, or more than half, shoot digital. I’m not going to say you have to shoot film. That would cut out so many people, although a lot of young people are going back to wanting to shoot film. Half of them shoot digital, which is fine. I just insist that they show me a contact sheet when I edit. I don’t want to look at the single image; I want to look at the contact sheet frame by frame.

Do you find that the students who shoot digital approach the work differently? Other than maybe shooting more?
After they take my class, it’s different. I tell them to tape the back of their camera. No one can look at the back of the camera. It’s a big mistake, because you think you have the picture and you don’t. If they want to use the camera as a light meter, that’s one thing, although I think they should learn to use a light meter. Often, there’s a difference in approach when they see what they just shot on the back of their camera. I also think that a lot of the portrait work I’m seeing in magazines has changed due to digital photography. There’s too much retouching. The skin looks weird. It’s just fake. Sometimes the rawness in things makes it better. When it’s too slick, to me it’s just not good — too overworked. Everyone looks so retouched — everyone looks the same. When I flew down to Mexico recently there was a well-known actress next to me on the plane. She’s probably in her late fifties, and she’s a very beautiful woman. She said she was humiliated in her last portrait session for a magazine because they had over-retouched the picture, making her look too much younger. She said she was afraid that people would think that she was the one who wanted that. She said next time she agrees to do a shoot, she’s going to insist that they don’t do that. You’re looking at the person; but you’re seeing them thirty years earlier! It’s weird. It’s very weird. Everything is so uniform.

Water Exercise Group, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, 1986

In terms of documenting different events and interesting situations, in the last ten or twenty years, there’s been a huge shift away from still photography to film and video. Do you think that has any future implications for our society, in terms of what we have to look back on?
A lot of times when I see young photographers who have a gift, I tell them to go into filmmaking because I see more of a future for them in that — especially if they have a real gift for telling a story. There’s much less of a future now if you want to do documentary photography. Filmmaking is a different way of thinking from still photography. One is static, and the other is linear. They are so completely different.

Martin [her husband, filmmaker Martin Bell] will tell you immediately that there’s nothing more beautiful than shooting in film, but he’s transitioned to digital media because it allows him to work in a different way. Martin and I work together sometimes. When we went to Iceland, I made a book on disabled children and he made a short film on one boy there named Alexander. The film is really beautiful — he did it all by himself. He did the sound. He did the lighting; there was very little lighting, because he didn’t really need too much. He did everything. He edited on the computers here in our studio. He did everything by himself with digital media, and he couldn’t have done that with traditional film. He would have had to have assistants, extra equipment; he couldn’t have edited it himself — it would have been far too expensive, if he had shot traditional film.

Do you think that a hundred years from now people will continue to find still photographs valuable?
There will always be a place for still pictures. You can look at and hold a picture; whereas with video or film, you have to sit down; you have to take your time in looking at them. It’s a different way of thinking. There’s another thing about shooting still photographs in analog: I know that my negatives are in a box, and they’re not sitting in some virtual space. They’re right there. I can get to them.

What was your last magazine assignment?
The kind of work that I really love to do is just not done anymore; it’s so changed. However, I had one wonderful portrait assignment a few months ago for the New York Times Magazine, which was to go to Peru and photograph a girl named Lori Berenson.

[Lori Berenson is a New Yorker who, in 1996, was tried and convicted by the Peruvian government on charges of collaborating with the MRTA, regarded as a terrorist group by that government. She was sentenced by a military tribunal to life in prison in Peru. Due partly to protests concerning abuses of her rights during trial, as well as to changeovers in government over time, her sentence is reduced at present. Mary Ellen Mark photographed her while under house arrest in Peru in 2011.]

Lori Berenson is forty-one years old; she has spent fifteen years in prison. She’s had a tough life. I liked her a lot. I felt for her. She was twenty-six years old, and idealistic.…I don’t think she’s a terrorist at all. You just don’t know what you’re doing at twenty-six. You’re a romantic. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She should be allowed to come back and start over again with what’s remaining of her life. She’s only forty-one and she’s got a baby. I was hoping that article would help her. Maybe it will. That was a great assignment, the best in a long time.

It’s been written that when you go to photograph some situation, you let everyone know right away that you are there to take pictures. You don’t warm them up and then whip out the camera.
No, I don’t. I could never do that. It’s so hypocritical in a way, isn’t it? Like, “Actually, I’m not really your friend — all this time, what I really wanted to do was to take your picture, not be your friend; I’m just here to take your picture.” That’s such a weird thing. I don’t get it.

Federico Fellini on the Set of Fellini Satyricon, Rome, Italy, 1969

Exactly what is it about the act of photographing someone that makes you feel you should tell them your purpose?
Well, you’re taking something from them. It’s very bold. It’s aggressive — I’m the first to admit that. If you can’t be upfront about it, then don’t do it. Go and photograph landscapes or still life, something that’s not going to talk back to you. You can do that with animals: they’re beautiful, dogs, you know, and they don’t talk back (they do bark.) But photographing people is a bold and aggressive act.

On the subject of presenting oneself: You’ve shot in so many places in which, in terms of your appearance, it’s clear that you’re a foreigner. For example, you have photographed on the streets of Calcutta or in Rio in a favela [slum]. So when you show up with your camera, and you’re not making friends with the people first, how do you really get in there?
You try to blend in. I always try to dress in a way that’s really unnoticeable, like a long shirt and pants. I don’t wear tight pants or short skirts, particularly in countries where it’s considered aggressive for women to do that. I respect the custom of the country. I haven’t shot much in Muslim countries, but I think if I did, I would wear something over my head, just because, who am I to insult someone? I’m insulting them enough by holding my camera right in their face. You have to be aware of that. I’ve known people who’ve dressed very provocatively in front of women who cover their heads, and I think it’s a mistake. They won’t get as good pictures. People will have a different reaction, somehow not real.

How have you found being a woman photographer?
I think it’s an advantage on the street; it’s an advantage in a certain kind of documentary photography; and certainly it’s an advantage with the subjects that I’ve picked. For example, with the circus in India, particularly, those young performing girls — they’ve been sold or rented by their families. With the prostitutes; they’re sold by their families. It’s a woman’s culture.
In the mental hospital [Ward 81] I went into a women’s ward, and I had an advantage; if I were a man I would have gone into a men’s ward. So it can go either way. I don’t think women are better photographers than men; I think they’re equal, as good.

On the Ward 81 essay [1975, in the maximum security section of Oregon State Hospital], was it stressful being there? Did you ever feel threatened?
I didn’t feel threatened. I’ve never felt threatened with any story that I’ve done. But was it stressful? Sometimes it was stressful — when there was tension on the ward, it was stressful.

When you were photographing prostitutes for the Falkland Road essay in India [1978, Mumbai, aka Bombay], what was the mood? Was it cheerful? Were people depressed? How did they respond to your being there?

It was a working atmosphere. It was a generally busy street with people working — not just prostitutes. People were going to work, and there were restaurants, and shops, and tea shops, and all sorts of things. It was just about work; a busy street.

Were the prostitutes happy to have you there? What was their reaction to you?
Well, I made friends with them. I got to know them. So, you know, I hope they were happy to have me there! It was hard to leave, because I got attached to the women.

How long were you there?
I was there for three months.

That’s a long time.
Well, with the circus [in Gujarat, India, 1989–90] it was for six months. Things were different then. I wish I could have stayed longer, but that was all the time and money I had.

Monkey Trainer’s Daughter, Old Delhi, India, 1979

When you photographed the circus in Gujarat, did the kids who were working in the circus seem happy to be there? Or was it more like drudgery?
Definitely, they were happy. It was a job: a lot of the young people in the circus come from extremely poor families. The circus became a profession for them. They learned a trade and they were being fed. They were treated kindly and very protectively, and taken very good care of. It was a trade.

Did you stay with circus families there?
No, no. Once or twice when we traveled, we stayed in the circus. But mostly we stayed at hotels nearby. I like to be able to retreat to a place in the evening, to go back to a quiet room.

Ram Prakash Singh with His Elephant Shyama, Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990

Do you find that people on the street — in general, in the world, not just in the United States — are less open to being photographed than they used to be? And how does that affect your work?
People know more about media now. They know the power of it. When I photographed the prostitutes in Bombay, it was before the Internet. It was before cable television. The world wasn’t as connected. They were not as savvy about what picture-taking is. Now they know more and it’s a little more complicated, and it’s surely more complicated getting access into institutions. When we did high school proms — and Martin made a film along with the proms — it was very complicated getting access to the high schools, especially at first. The students are minors; everybody was afraid we were going to put something bad on the Internet. You know, I think because I’m older, it’s easier. On the street, they don’t think I’m some kind of pervert. It’s harder for guys, I think.

The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1987

What is your favorite photo essay, of all the ones you’ve created?
There’s no favorite. That’s like someone asking you who is your favorite child. There is no favorite.

How did you come to do the story on Mother Teresa? [1980 Calcutta, India]
I love India. I’d visited it a lot, and I’d always wanted to do that story. It was something that I’d heard about and read about. When Mother Teresa won the Nobel Prize, John Loengard from Life Magazine sent me there to do a story. Then I returned again on my own.

Was it somehow different the second time you went? Or were you able to pick up where you left off?
I was more familiar with where to go. I had to get permission from her again, but the second time I knew the different mission houses and where to go, so, in a sense, it was easier.

Some of your most powerful photo essays have been about disadvantaged or unwell people, and yet it’s been written that you don’t like to be thought of as a “humanitarian” or service photographer.
Well, I’m not. I take pictures so I can make iconic images. That’s my goal. I guess I am interested, but all documentary photographers gravitate toward the disadvantaged, for several reasons. First, for the more selfish reasons: the disadvantaged are more accessible and more visible. I have to admit that; it’s the truth. Secondly, because their stories should be told. That’s the unselfish part. So there are the selfish and the unselfish parts. All the really fine photographers working today — people like Eugene Richards and Donna Ferrato–we all gravitate toward people who need to have their stories told. It’s probably the main reason. Donna Ferrato’s work on battered women was incredible. Eugene’s work is unbelievable. His book just came out on wounded soldiers [War is Personal, Many Voices Press].

Could you tell us about your latest book, Prom, which is scheduled for publication in 2012, and also about your husband’s film on the same subject?
The last book I did is not on the disadvantaged; it’s on high school proms in the United States. In Martin’s film on prom — and that’s when film can do something different; sound can do something different — we went to thirteen different venues — working with all different kinds of kids, from the disadvantaged students to the richest students. It took four years to do it, because it’s so seasonal. In his film, he shows the kind of confidence that having financial advantage gives you. It’s not to say that rich kids are bad, because they’re not bad. They’re just kids; however, kids who have financial advantage have more confidence and are more lucky. Those kids who “have not” are so touching in a way, but they want to “have” also. You see that in the film. And they should want to “have.” It’s harder to see that in the still pictures because everyone is beautifully dressed.

Andy Monz and Tricia Rorison, Peabody High School Senior Prom, Monroeville, Pennsylvania, USA, 1995

It was very interesting that the African-American kids’ dresses are all custom-designed. They don’t go to the department stores to buy their clothes, whereas the white kids all go to department stores or to fashion shops, and their clothes are very similar. We went to this amazing school in Newark called Malcolm X. Shabazz. It’s incredible. There’s not one white student in the whole school. I knew about the school before we went because I always shoot the Harlem Day Parade. It’s my favorite parade. They have marching bands up there, and the Malcolm X. Shabazz band is incredible. That was one of the first schools that I did, and those kids were the best behaved kids of any of the prom kids. The kids in the prom were the kids who graduated, and that really meant something to them. Most of the other kids don’t graduate from that school. The dresses at Shabazz were fantastic. They have a fashion show at the beginning of the year, and the students pick the designer they want to make their dress. So they were all individually dressed, and it was just an entirely different attitude, and very interesting to see. In the film they all talk about how they really want to succeed; whereas with the other kids [the ones with financial advantage], they take for granted that they will succeed. It’s not what they want; it’s what they will do. It’s interesting. You always feel that you want the people who have less of a chance to be able to have a chance. Maybe if they are shown how tough it is, people will care and the kids without advantage will have a chance, but it is hard to move up. It’s more possible in this society than it is in others — it’s possible, but hard.

What do you find appealing about working on a film set?
For commercial work, it’s the best. First of all, you’re watching people who are really great at what they do during their work. You’re seeing how incredible lighting technicians and great directors work, great actors, costume designers, makeup artists, everybody — all the people who work on a film are there because they’re great at what they do. It’s taught me a lot about how to direct people when I do portraits; it’s taught me a lot about lighting. Watching great actors work has also taught me a lot.
Filmmaking is fascinating. To me it seems the hardest thing in the world — I don’t know how in the world anybody ever makes a film. It’s much harder than what I do, and much more complicated. What’s hard about the still photographer’s work is that when you’re on the set, you’re the least important person there, but, at the same time, you have to try to get the time you need with the actors. To be able to pull the actors and get the pictures that are needed for advertising or for publicity: that’s an art.

Do you print your own work?
I used to. I did learn to print. As a matter of fact, when I started out I was really young and I had a horrible allergy to the chemicals. I don’t do it anymore. I work with an incredible printer named Chuck Kelton. He’s amazing. He’s much better than I could ever be as a printer. Printing is a separate thing. So he does my printing for me, and he’s done it for a long time.

Is there an overarching purpose behind your work as a photographer that spans all the different types of work you do — the documentary work, the portraits, stills… Do you have a certain goal?
My goal is to make great pictures — through and through — to try to do that. It’s hard to make good pictures.

You’ve shot in so many different situations with so many different people. Do you find that there’s a certain common thread of humanity in everyone? To most people, it looks as if different corners of the world can be essentially different planets.
Different cultures have different specific quirks, it’s true: India, in particular. India’s really hard to figure out. There’s the common thread of kindness, maybe…and maybe a common thread of evil. I don’t know — people can be very cruel, and people can be very kind and loving. Of course you see that in all kinds of people. Not everyone is a lovely, great person. In general, I’d rather photograph someone I really liked than someone I didn’t like.

Jesse Damm and his Dog Nick, Llano, California, USA, 1994

Did you find that you still have to work hard to be good at making images?
You have to work hard at anything. I still work very hard. It doesn’t just come to you. I think that as you get older, you learn more technically, but it’s still really hard to make great pictures. I never take that for granted. There is no formula, and I never take that for granted.

Holly McWhorter, formerly on the staff of the Village Voice, has written for numerous publications, including the Village Voice, V, and Zink.

Dispensary Just Outside Calcutta, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, India, 1981

Originally published at Focus Photography Magazine.