recipe for Mary Ellen Marks type of photography

After observing many of Mary Ellen Marks photographs, i have come up with a recipe of techniques to recreate Mary Ellen Marks type of photography.


Mary ellen mark techniques.

-black n white
- shadows
- use of sunlight
- captures unique images
- captures many different cultures
- like to incorporate children into her photographs
- in portraights, subjects look into the camara.

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen mark was born on March 20th, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up in the suburbs and started taking pictures by the young age of 9, with her Box Brownie camera. Mary always enjoyed photography but developed a real passion for it in high school. In her free time she loved to take pictures and draw lots of different things. She attended the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, an Ivy League school and got her BFA (Bachelor of fine arts) in painting and history. Then in 1964 she attended the Annenberg School for communication and got her masters degree in photojournalism. Right after college Mary received a Fulbright scholarship to photograph in Turkey for a year. Also that year she traveled to many various European countries such as Spain, England, Italy, and Greece. During her travels she gained lots of experience in photographing foreign countries and developed a love for taking pictures while traveling. This became one of her trademarks and she had published many photo shoots in various countries such as India, Ethiopia, Vietnam, the USA, and Australia. Traveling constantly helped Mary Ellen mark develops her own uniqueness to photojournalism. What made here technique so unique was she took photos of situations all over the world that were very strange and odd. She captured the unordinary and presented it in a simple black and white form. an example is the photo below.

I think why this style of photojournalism captured so many peoples attention is because it mixed the unordinary with the ordinary. She would take the ordinary subject such as a little girl and photograph her doing a very unordinary act, such as smoking. I also think that since most of her photos are in black and white, it leaves room for the viewer to fantasize what colors might be there. Some of marks most famous work comes from photographing circuses. She loved capturing the unique and specialness of the circus and had photo shoots with circuses in Vietnam and India. Probably her most famous shot came out of the India circus photo shoot.

This photo exemplifies marks style really well and was one of her most published and seen photos.photojournalism is a type of journalism that portrays information threw either one single portrait, a series of photos or even sometimes video. the genre of photojournalism was pioneered by photographers such as Carol Szathmari, William Simpson, and Mathew Brady. These peoples photographs were concedered photojournalism because they were the first pictures illustrating a story in a newspaper. Photojournalisms birth had a lot to do with the invention of the printing press. the printing press allowed photos that captured a story to be shown to a mass amount of people all across a country or nation. Both the printing press and photojournalism sprung up around the mid 18th century. below are some photos taken by the pioneers of photojournalism

Photojournalisms "golden age" was said to have occurred from the 1930s to the 1950s. Many pictures that illustrated stories were published in magazines and papers such as (Picture Post (London), Paris Match (Paris), Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (Berlin), Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (Berlin), Life (USA), Look (USA), Sports Illustrated (USA)) and newspapers (The Daily Mirror (London), The New York Daily News. all these magazines and papers were varied in context. Papers such as the new york daily news focused on issues and topics that were occurring in new york, while as sports illustrated focused on the world of sports. Many magazines, such as "Life" focused on politics. Photojournalism was very revotiotionary the politics because it let the public see how many politicians and people of power looked.

Photojournalism also helped significantly with the documentation of unknown countires and places. since pictures could be printed so easily, many people got to experience what foreign places and countries looked like. This changed many peoples views on the world and opened up peoples eyes to all the kinds of different people and cultures that were in the world. If you think about it, with out photojournalism, the publics perspective on globalization and education on other cultures and races would be very altered. It was truly a revolutionary type of photography that educated the world.

repetition

forground backround

Leading lines

halloween pictures

the ghost moving through the dark eery night.

it transforms and shapeshifts

darkness to light

light to darkness

this is its one night to show its power

to return to the world it once loved

lonely ghost

moving through the dark eery night

The Rule of Thirds

I like this photo because it takes a diffrent approach to the rule of thirds style. Instead of being a in focus image it is blurry which allows the viewer to only see sillowets of the backround. This creates a unique set up which is sort of mysterious. My favorite part about this picture is the person to the far right. I enjoy it because you can not tell who he/she is, and it gives you a sense of wonder. This is by far my favorite image out of this series.

This photo is a good example of using the rule of thirds with a model. It displays a person in 1/3rd of the frame looking directly at the camara. I like the upward angle of this picture because it makes the person in photo seem superior to the photographer.

i like this shot because i think it captures the emotion of my subject as well as documenting the backround. Toghether i think it makes for a pleasing contrast. I also really like how my subject is posing. He gives of a feeling of wanting privacy. i think this makes the photo more intrueging.

This shot is cool because it is a great example of the rule of thirds. I think it balances my subject with my backround perfectly. I like the expresion on my subjects face because it gives the image a kindof "tough" feeling.

I like this image because it gives the viewer a sense of wonder. I feel this way because you do not know what the subject is looking at. This is one of the perks of taking photos in the "rule of thirds" format, not everything is captured in the picture so it forces the viewer to use his/her imagination.

these photos are my attempt at shooting architechture and buildings. my favorite shot is the one of the church with the clouds behind it. i like it becuase the clouds could represent god shinning down on the church.

these photos are my attempt at portraits. i really like the black and white image application when shooting a p0rtrait because i think it captures the persons true emotion and there is no color to drag away that emotion.

when i first took these images i was supposed to be focusing on getting cool shots of people in the library, but as i continued to explore i found a favorite way to edit a picture.

i really enjoyed editing using color on only a selected part of an image. i think it brings out the focus of where u want the viewer to look. also it can turn a boring, plain, image into a very interesting one.

my favorite image of these three is the picture of my hair, i like it because it captures my hair in mid motion which creates for a very captivating image.

favorite 3 by 3 pics

My favorite out of these 3 is the black and white photo of peoples feet. i enjoy this photo the most because i like how the shot captures the declining stare case as well as peoples feet and legs.

i think the photo of myself is cool because the circles are very unique and capture a stange but nice angle of my face