What a sad day for photography and especially women in photography. We lost one of the masters of contemporary American photography with Mary Ellen Mark’s passing.
I was very lucky to meet, work with and know her a tiny bit. She was part of a show I curated for Impossible Projects Polaroid Exhibition in 2012. Her strong opinions and fierce positions were not necessarily easy to work with but profound, sincere and strongly founded in her vast knowledge and deep talent. I will never forget her lecture to me on how very much she disapproved of the deliberate application of cropping to photographs where she considered the framing and composition of an image one of the basics a photographer has to master in order to even start considering him/herself a photographer….
I will always remember her striking dark braids, piercing eyes, her love for her Mexican travels and her very kind but mostly reserved ways of interaction.
We are losing one of our greatest, but part of her spirit will remain with us in her incredible work.
Thank you and Good Bye Mary Ellen Mark. RIP.
Photocredit: Musee Magazine