Blog 6: Mary Ellen Mark - Environmental Portraiture

     Mary Ellen Mark was an American photography who lived from 1940 to 2015. During her lifetime, she photographed as she traveled, her focus on humanism. She received numerous awards from national and international associations. Because of her travel, she was able to capture a wide variety of different cultures. Looking through some of her work, it looks like she was ahead of her time. She was capturing images that would be perceived as controversial at the time, especially some of the ones from her "The Lives of Women" exhibition. 

    I like that she went outside of what was excepted and told stories about the subjects through the images themselves. In the photo below, the girl's expression combined with the dirty, worn clothing, and the campers in the background create a sense of awareness. She doesn't look happy or sad, but rather defeated, as though she has been struggling for a while and it's starting to make a heavy impact. The butterfly mask 

on the boy feels out of place, a contrast to what's in the rest of the image. Butterflies are usually associated with beauty and peace, yet here it is as a mask on a child who isn't even smiling. 

    Although other photographers capture emotion, I like the way her photos capture it in its purest form. Some of her other shots that are portraits feel like candids. The positioning, sense of movement, expressions, and angles add realness. They aren't the traditional "Smile at the camera." I think that's inspiring, capturing people as they are, not forcing them to be something they're not.