Portrait Photography , Mary Ellen Mark

"I'm just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence".

A quote from Mark in 1987, to me this shows someone who has real empathy for other peoples trouble and lives and wishes to show this through their photographs.

Mary Ellen Mark is a American photographer born in the 1940's. She initially attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a degree in Painting and Art History . She then moved onto photojournalism and received a masters degree for the University of the Annenberg School for Communication in 1964 . Her real break came from the Fulbright Scholarship she won in 1965 from which she was able to travel to Europe . After her travels she moved to NewYork and this is when her career really started,  she firstly worked for movie studios taking still shots for advertisement purposes . Then she moved onto magazines such as Time, Rolling Stone and Vanity fair.

 Her style is one of realism in such that she gives us images of real people in their environments. Marks photographs are mainly shot in black and white this gives a gritty feeling to them and helps to show the subjects lives as they are I feel with them being in colour this would distract from the message being portrayed. Mary Ellen Mark uses lines interestingly, framing in some of her images is in a unconventional manner,  which I enjoy a lot. A lot of her photographs will have the back ground unlevel , for example the picture below shows a child in a house. He is leaning against I think a washer or fridge and he looks to be upright but then as you start to look around the scene you notice that the cupboard is far from level which leads you to the window being on the same angle. All this leads to real sence of seeing the scene as it is was pictured. As in real life none of us see thing on a level perspective as we are always tilting our heads when looking at scenes of people and objects . The child's head is the focal point in this picture which is really very well thought out as with the back ground being unlevel the viewers eye spirals out round and around the shot.To the bottom left you can see a picture of my daughter

http://www.maryellenmark.com/

"What's interesting is letting people tell you about themselves in the picture"

                          



Shutter speed 1/200sec , ISO 200 , f4 , 18mm focal length.


Below we see a scene taken in a classroom in Kiev , Ukraine USSR in 1987 . What makes this image interesting is that again we have the focal point being the girls face in the middle but for me it's the girls hands that make the picture. The girl in the left of the shot shows a with the position of her hand a feeling of warmth openness to her two friends , also how the arm is laid on the table leads us to the next area of the photograph . Here we find the other girls one looking directly into the lens the other looking out over the room. This images works because the girls expression in the middle of the picture is a great example of someone who really just doesn't want to be where she is . You can imagine, unlike the other two girls in the shot, that she would at any point just leave and the other two just left wondering...

Here I have taken a few pictures of my son whilst he was washing my car . A job he usually enjoys but not on this occasion. I had told him I'd be taking some pictures of him while he worked and had told him when he was asked to look at the camera not to smile. The pictures worked out quite well , eventually as he found it difficult not to show even the smallest smile. I was trying to portray an image of a boy wanting to be somewhere else, any where but not having to wash his Dad's car . I used my Nikon D3100 camera but on this occasion I tried out my new Tamron 70 - 300 lens. I took these without my tripod but lent against a tree and a car to help keep stable. The first image works really well as by asking  my son to lean in against the car I was able to tilt the camera to get the wall in for background , my son and the car all at roughly the same angle but didn't show quite the right expression  . The second image below shows my son with a better expression. In this shot he really looks fed up with it all which he was.
 Shutter Speed 1/125sec , ISO 100 , f4 , 92mm focal length






Again here I used my new Tamron lens the 70-300mm Telephoto. By time I took this one my son was genuinely fed up with me taking his picture and washing my car. The above picture is a bit fake looking. This time I used a brick wall to help me keep stable which did seem to work . On reflection I would have been better using my tripod but my subject was not in the best of moods as you can see so opted for the quicker option. These of course started out in colour and have been changed to B&W . By doing this I feel it has aided in helping to portray a feeling of boredom which was present at the time.

This image below has had the contrast decreased and slightly lightened which I feel gives it a good comparison to Mark's shot of the girl to the right . In the two shots both subjects are directly looking into the cameras lens both giving a message in their expressions. In the girls eyes I can see a message of although being in a run down area and with the little girl behind her and she is having to wear dirty clothes and shoes she portrays to me felling of contempt for her surroundings and that she will escape this place. My son too is wishing he was else were . The image of the girls looks to be little underexposed as detail is lost in the darker areas. I feel my picture shows greater detail . Shown below is the same image but with a slight tint and kept to it's original size.

Shutter Speed 1/160sec , ISO 100 , f4 , 85mm focal length

  

Health & Safety

These images were taken whilst my car was being washed and with my children running around so with this in mind I deceided not use my tripod as this would create an extra tip hazard as there was already a hose being used so didn't want any more hazards for my children and myself to trip on. I also spoke about not hosing me as is a usual event when washing my car as this could damage my equipment. I told my other children to stand by the house whilst taking the shots so not to cause any hazards.