The Silver Eye Center for Photography is joining with Manchester Craftsmen's Guild to present a free lecture by internationally known photographer Mary Ellen Mark, this Friday, November 4th, 2005, at 6:00 p.m.
She will sign books at a reception following the lecture. Thirty-three of Mark's photographs will be exhibited at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild now through January 8, 2006. These images were selected from those created between 1963-1999 and published in her book MARY ELLEN MARK: AMERICAN ODYSSEY.
Mary Ellen Mark's photojournalism career has been built mostly around magazines. Her photographs and reportorial series have appeared in periodicals worldwide, from Life to Rolling Stone, from Paris Match to the New Yorker. But what is most recognizable about her photography, her life's work, is her strongly personal approach with a camera in her hand, she documents the lives of people on the edges of society -- from the prostitutes of Bombay to the street kids of Seattle to the cowboys of small-town Texas rodeos, homeless families, runaway children, mentally ill patients...all subjects who provide a unique glimpse into her vision and talent as a photographer. What I admire most about her work is the candid intimacy in each of her photographs that is uniquely her own, producing compassionate and complex portraits that remain indelible in my memroy. Mary Ellen Mark has the ability to capture people with extra-ordinary depth and feeling. Almost without fail, her images are moving. With a skill beyond the normal artist, however, her images have the ability to be thought-provoking.
If you are in/about Pittsburgh, PA I would recommend coming out to the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild to see and hear Mary Ellen Mark speak!
all the best~Craig