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in memoriam
May 26, 2015

Mary Ellen Mark Was a Master of the Unexpected

By Erica Schwiegershausen

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Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark — the documentary photographer best known for her haunting portraits of adults and children on the margins of society — died in New York yesterday at the age of 75.

“I think it was the connection with people that astounded me,” Mark writes of her first experience photographing in her forthcoming book, Mary Ellen Mark on the Portrait and the Moment, which is due out from Aperture this June. “I saw that my camera gave me a sense of connection with others that I never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there, but that was never explored before … I realized all of the possibilities that could exist for me with my camera; all of the images that I could capture, all of the lives I could enter, all of the people I could meet and how much I could learn from them.”

Born near Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, in 1940, Mark first became interested in photography while on scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communications. In the early 1960s, she began wandering the streets of downtown Philadelphia with a camera on loan from the school. Not long after, she received a Fulbright scholarship to Turkey, where she made her first iconic images, establishing photographic interests that would define her entire career. An early portrait, Beautiful Emine Posing, which depicts a young girl boldly confronting the camera, set Mark on a lifelong fascination with children yearning for adulthood.

Mary Ellen Mark. Photo: Mary Ellen Mark

After her stint in Turkey, Mark moved to New York, where she began photographing on assignment for magazines like Look, Life, New York, and The New Yorker, often turning her lens on people in adverse circumstances. After photographing film stills on the set of Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest, she returned to the women’s maximum-security ward of the Oregon State Mental Institution — where the movie was filmed — to interview and photograph the women confined to the ward. Later, she traveled to India to photograph brothels, and, in the late ‘80s, began photographing Tiny — a 13-year-old prostitute living on the streets of Seattle — while on assignment photographing runaway teenagers for Life magazine.

Mark’s 1990 image, Amanda and Her Cousin Amy, which depicts a young girl wearing makeup and smoking a cigarette in a kiddie pool, was taken on a visit to Valdese, North Carolina, where she was photographing a school for problem children. “I thought all the kids were great,” Mark wrote. “Nine-year-old Amanda was very intelligent and very naughty. She was, of course, my favorite.” Unlike many documentary photographers who prefer to get to know their subjects before turning the camera on them, Mark’s philosophy was to photograph people from the second she met them. “I start shooting right away, always,” she explained. “If you don’t, you’re misrepresenting your role in the situation.”

Over the course of her career, Mark would photograph circus performers, gypsy camps, homeless families, and numerous sets of twins. She was especially wary of photographic cliché: “I’ve worked in a lot of spectacular places, but I’m always looking to go beyond the spectacle to something more original,” she reflected. Her photographs are distinguished by the eccentricity of her subjects, but also by her clear-eyed celebration of humanity. “I’m most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That’s my forte,” she wrote.

Click through the slideshow for a look back at Mark’s most iconic images, from her early travels in Turkey to circus performers in Mexico City, along with many of her photographs for New York Magazine.

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1 / 31 Photos
Three Acrobats Vazquez Brothers Circus, Mexico City, Mexico, 1997 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All rights Mary Ellen Mark
Tiny, Black Hat and Veil Streetwise, Seattle,  1983 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All rights Mary Ellen Mark
Amanda and Her Cousin Amy Valdese, North Carolina, USA, 1990 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Pinky and Shiva Ji Great Royal Circus, Junagadh, India, 1992 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Ram Prakash Singh with His Elephant Shyama Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Beautiful Emine Posing Trabzon, Turkey, 1965 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Rat, 16 (far left), and Mike, 17 Seattle, 1983 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All rights Mary Ellen Mark
Gibbs Senior High School Prom St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, 1986 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Federico Fellini on the Set of Satyricon Rome, Italy 1969 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All rights Mary Ellen Mark
The Damm Family in Their Car Los Angeles, California, USA, 1987 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Craig Scarmardo and Cheyloh Mather at the Boerne Rodeo Texas, USA, 1991 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Mother Teresa at the Home for the Dying Mother Teresa's Missions of Charity, Calcutta, India 1980 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen ... Mother Teresa at the Home for the Dying Mother Teresa's Missions of Charity, Calcutta, India 1980 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Girl Jumping Over a Wall Central Park, New York City, 1967 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/All Rights Mary Ellen Mark
Falkland Road Bombay, India, 1978 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Gloria Steinem New York Magazine, November 7, 2011 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Gay and Nan Talese "Nonfiction Marriage," New York Magazine, May 4, 2009 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Bernadette Peters  Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Hillary Clinton "Hillary's Turn," New York Magazine, April 3, 2000 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Dr. Stephanie LaFarge and Sophie "Cruelty on the Couch," New York Magazine, February 21, 2000 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Patti Hansen, Katy Braitman "Black Magic," New York Magazine, August 27, 2001 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
"A Serial Killer in Common" Maureen Brainard-Barnes’s sister, Melissa Cann; Amber Costello’s sister, Kimberly Overstreet; Megan Waterma... "A Serial Killer in Common" Maureen Brainard-Barnes’s sister, Melissa Cann; Amber Costello’s sister, Kimberly Overstreet; Megan Waterman’s mother, Lorraine Ela; Melissa Barthelemy’s mother, Lynn; and Shannan Gilbert’s mother, Mari  New York Magazine, June 6, 2011 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
"House of the Rising Ronsons" Samantha, Charlotte, Mark, Annabelle, Alexander, Anne Dexter-Jones, and Mike Jones New York Magazine, Ma... "House of the Rising Ronsons" Samantha, Charlotte, Mark, Annabelle, Alexander, Anne Dexter-Jones, and Mike Jones New York Magazine, May 8, 2000 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
We Are Not Afraid to Touch New York Magazine, December 20, 2010 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Marleen Berkova, Gabriella Silva  "Black Magic," New York Magazine, August 27, 2001 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Reba and Lori Schappell "Separation Anxiety," New York Magazine, August 22, 2005 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Hillary Clinton "Hillary's Turn," New York Magazine, April 3, 2000 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Annie Morton, Alek Wek "Black Magic," New York Magazine, August 27, 2001 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Carl and Clarence Aguirre "Separation Anxiety," New York Magazine, August 22, 2005 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Nejma and Peter Beard "Taming Peter Beard," New York Magazine, February 24, 2013 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Gene Stolowski and his daughter, Briana "No Way Out," New York Magazine, January 22, 2007 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
Jeff Cool, Brendan Cawley "No Way Out," New York Magazine, January 22, 2007 Photo: Mary Ellen Mark
1 / 31

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  • mary ellen mark
  • photography
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  • in memoriam
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