MARY ELLEN MARK - PART 2

INTERVIEW BY STEVE LAFRENIERE


Tiny

Have you ever concealed a camera?

No. I wouldn’t be good at that. I like to be open with my camera. Most of the documentary work that I admire is from people who are open with their camera.

Click here for a slide show of Mary's work.

What else have you and Martin worked on together recently?

Two years ago we went to Iceland. We were commissioned to do a project on disabled children for the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík. Martin made a 40-minute film that’s absolutely beautiful. We made two trips there, photographing these children in two schools: one for profoundly disabled kids and one for profoundly to moderately disabled kids. They gave me full access and they had a big show in Reykjavík. It got great reviews, and I just assumed the show would travel, but no one in the US wants to look at it—neither the pictures nor the films.

Why do you think that is?

Because I don’t think there’s an interest in strong documentary work now. It’s so centered on surface here.

I will say, though, that documentary film has made quite a reentry to the stage in the last five years—but mainly in the form of advocacy or propaganda.

But this is advocacy in its own way. It’s sort of a love story about these people and their little boy—it’s beautiful. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, come by and we’ll show it to you. I wrote letters to so many museums and they all said, “Oh, this is wonderful work, but there’s no place for it with us.”

How about in Europe?

I think it’s going to show in Scandinavia. They’re much more open and interested in documentaries.

I’ve actually seen this work and I think it’s extraordinary.

I thought the project was really powerful and universal—it touches everybody. And when you have this kind of passion about something and you want people to see it and nobody in this country wants to look at it, it’s very disheartening.

Well, you know, it’s the keepers of the gates that say that, because there are probably a lot of people in this country who would like to see it.

Everything is so commercial.

Speaking of commercial, I’m trying to understand the whole monograph industry. Does the photographer make money from monographs or does the publisher make money?

You don’t make money. The only way you can make money as a photographer is to do commercial work. Even with magazines, you kind of only get by. And I’ve never been a commercial photographer. Probably the most commercial book I’ll ever do is the one on film sets, and not just because of my pictures but because I got some great people to write about being behind the scenes: Mike Nichols and Helen Mirren and Tim Burton and Buck Henry. They wrote beautiful things about their experiences behind the scenes. The writing is amazing in it. I’m so honored that these people agreed to write for this book.

That does sound like something that will sell very well.

It’s my first really commercial thing, and I didn’t do it to be commercial. I did it because I had all these pictures, and someone gave me the idea to ask some of the people I know or had worked with to write something. And I didn’t want them to write about me—it had to be about their experiences. A couple of pieces are very funny and insightful and interesting. It’s the first book I’ve done that maybe has a chance of being commercial. The other work I do because I have to do it, because I love to do it.

You’re also teaching photography, right?

I do a workshop at the International Center of Photography in New York. I’ve worked there for 14 years. I also do workshops in Mexico a lot.

I assume that most of the students are on the younger side.

Not necessarily. What’s amazing about these workshops is that some people have taken the class ten times. They range in age from 16 to 60, and they range in jobs from cinematographers to businessmen. There’s also a woman who’s an airline stewardess who’s learned to take amazing pictures. And there are people from Norway, people from Australia—people from all over the world come.

What level are they at when they come in?

They can be at any level. They just have to want to do it.

So do people go out and shoot things and come back?

They have to go out and shoot, but not en masse. They have to go out by themselves. I look at everyone’s work the first day. I have a wonderful assistant who’s a great Mexican photographer and we find each person a separate assignment that could be good for him or her. It’s a ten-day workshop. They go out and shoot for about seven days. I make appointments with them every morning and individually look at their contact sheets, which I mark up. They go and process the film at night. There’s a woman who took the class who I swear was schizophrenic, but she took great pictures. There’s a whole range. It’s a great class. We make a book at the end.

Do you ever go out on assignment and come back with nothing? Are there failures, or does it at least turn into something else?

Well, I’ve had failures in the sense that… Let’s see. Recently—and I’m not going to say who it was for—I did a portrait assignment that I thought carried into a documentary subject so I did it as a documentary subject. I happened to get a picture out of it that I love, so that’s fine. But the magazine didn’t want it. It’s very painful when that happens.

How long have you actually gone without having a camera in your hands?

Well, when I’m out on the street I don’t have a camera on me. I don’t work all the time. Like today I’m in the studio and I have tons of things to do. Sometimes a month can go by where I don’t use a camera. But when I teach, especially in Mexico, I’m very frustrated because I don’t have the time to take pictures. I try to go out a little bit, but with so many hours of teaching it’s really hard.

There is a quality in your photos that gives me the feeling that I’m not looking at a picture but instead that I’m really seeing that person in front of me and I have a relationship with them. It’s very unusual.

That’s what I try to do, but it’s hard with documentary work. It can also be hard with subjects that are tough to take, because sometimes people don’t want to look at them. But I think that everyone has a right to be seen.


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