Mary Ellen Mark by Sarah Lawhead

The process of tracking down and interviewing Mary Ellen Mark, a world renown photographer, was somehow both incredibly exciting and anti-climactic for me. Firstly, let me introduce Mary Ellen to you in case you haven’t heard of her. Mary Ellen, who describes herself as a documentary and portrait photographer, has photographed all types of people from the fringes of society to public figures such as Meryl Streep and Anita Hill. She has also worked on movie sets doing some commercial photography. (Her husband is the film director Martin Bell, by the way). Her photos have been published in Vanity Fair, LIFE, and Rolling Stone, and, to date, she has published 16 books of her own work.

Some of her most impressive work was done amongst the prostitutes and street children in India. One photograph that I find particularly compelling shows a child being hugged by an ape. The ape is so large and the child so small that they are basically the same size. Through Mary Ellen's use of comparative size, analogous color scheme, and framing (leaving any other humans out of the frame, or out of focus) she depicts a desolate landscape where the child's only family or connection is found in these apes. The chains, although not on the child, speak to a sense of being trapped and enslaved in a life of poverty and isolation. To the viewer, the child feels uncared. However I can sense Mary Ellen's compassion through the image she made in two ways. She captured an image of the child looking into the camera- a soul searching image, which differentiates him from the ape, affirms his significance and importance. Secondly, her vantage point is on the same level as the boy, also giving him dignity by regarding him as an equal. Considering the caste system in India, I'm sure that her perspective and compassion is not as commonplace there as we would hope. Pictures like this snap me out of my comfort zone and remind me that there is a very harsh reality out there, one with which I am too out of touch. (She published a book about her time in India called Falkland Road, and was so moved by her time there that she named her NY studio Falkland Road as well).

In another image there is a prostitute in a bed, who appears to be having sex with the man on top of her. Both of them are looking at the camera. The woman looks bold, the man ashamed and kind of sad. It is printed darkly, which speaks to the subject of the photograph. This photo makes me feel uncomfortable and sad. I don't really like looking at it or being faced with the truth that this woman is (literally) selling herself (and I'm watching her do that), but I appreciate Mary Ellen's ability to show a situation for what it is. I think that it is a strong picture nonetheless.

Mary Ellen's work could be compared and contrasted with that of Edward Curtis, who documented Native Americans in the early twentieth century. Both of them have done cross cultural documentary work, although Curtis's work was much more formal and composed. It was later discovered that he actually brought props and costumes with him to make the Native Americans appear as Europeans imagined them to be. He projected the white man's stereotype of this culture on the Native Americans and, actually, his images still deceive us today. The Native Americans of that time dressed very similarly to other white men and women of the day, and only agreed to wear these costumes for the photos. (Why that is, I do not know.) Mary Ellen Mark, however, tends to capture people in their natural, unmanipulated environments, but still admits that biases come across in her work. Both Mary Ellen and Edward Curtis, however, made powerful portraits of a people group while shedding light on an marginalized group of society.

In the world of photography Mary Ellen is quite famous, and for this reason I assumed she would be completely out of reach for me (turns out I was wrong) and I did not even consider interviewing her. I originally planned to interview a guy who is the main photographer for the United Center because the situation kind of fell into my lap. That guy photographs the Bears, Blackhawks, and Bulls and musicians who play there. The only problem is that I am really not into sports. After talking with Dan, I decided to pursue my ‘dream’ interview. (Lesson #1- Aim High)

My first question was how I would even get in touch with her. Her website listed an email as a method of contact but I opted not to do that because I don’t believe people will actually respond to emails. I knew she was living in NYC so I looked for her phone number on DexKnows.com, thinking that it was a long shot. There were 5 Mary Ellen Mark’s living in NYC so I searched for Martin Bell on the same site. There were a few of Martin Bell’ also, but I compared results and found and address and phone number that overlapped. All I could think was, “Really? It’s that easy?”

I called the number without any interview questions in mind, just to see if I could even get through. It was a number to her studio and the receptionist told me that in order to schedule and interview with Mary Ellen I must send an email to the address listed on their website. (Lesson #2- sometimes we should just follow the instructions instead of thinking we know better). So I sent an email asking for a 10 minute (or less) interview with Mary Ellen Mark. I mentioned that I wanted to interview her on how she chooses her subjects. (Lesson #3- Pay attention to which address you send the email from when awaiting for a response.) I sent the email from my columbia address on friday but kept checking all weekend for a response in my personal email. All the while, this reinforced the ‘they don’t actually respond to emails’ notion in my head. Turns out they do, and I am the one who overlooked it.

To my surprise and excitement, Mary Ellen’s assistant, Meredith, said I could do a short interview Monday afternoon. She’d sent the response almost immediately after I’d emailed her but, because of my email mix up, I didn’t write her back for two days. Overall, this didn’t mess up my interview process, but I think there was potential for that to happen because to not respond in a timely manner makes me seem disinterested and careless. Also, at this point it was Sunday night and Mary Ellen’s schedule for Monday could have filled up or changed by that point. I wrote Meredith back and confirmed a time and gave her my phone number so Mary Ellen could call me. Let’s pause for a laugh here. (Lesson #4- don’t make assumptions about who is contacting who for the interview). The assumptions I made here were that 1. Mary Ellen would be talking to me on her personal cell phone, 2. that she wouldn’t want me to have her cell phone number so, 3. Mary Ellen would choose to call me at her convenience, oh, and 4. that this interview was important enough to Mary Ellen that she would take down my number and call me on her own.

Meredith quickly responded to my email saying that I could call them at a specified time. Immediately I realized how ridiculous it was to assume that Mary Ellen would be the one to call me and wished I would have thought to ask Meredith how she would like to go about it. In spite of all this, we had an interview time set up for Monday afternoon.

I spent Sunday night coming up with good, atypical interview questions. At least, I though so. I already knew quite a bit about Mary Ellen’s life and work from past research projects, so I tried to aim for questions which would lead to meaningful responses from her. I decided that if I wanted to talk about specifics I would just pick one aspect of her work- the time she spent with the prostitutes in India. Instead of using a tape recorder I decided to type the questions on my laptop so that when I called her I could just add in her responses.

As the interview time approached I started to get nervous (which doesn’t happen to me too often). Then I got nervous about the fact that I was nervous when I needed to be totally calm. And I couldn’t seem to find anywhere quiet to sit to call her. I called 3 minutes late. (I still don’t know if that is super bad in the interview rule book or not, but Mary Ellen was on the phone with someone else and couldn’t talk right then anyway). I was told to call back in 15 minutes. A few minutes later I got a phone call from Meredith who put Mary Ellen on the line (I was a little unprepared at this point) and then the interview began.

The conversation went something like this:

“Hi, is this Mary Ellen?”

“Yes.”

“Mary Ellen Mark?”

(Duh).

“Yes, but I have to leave here quickly so I can’t talk too long.”

Thus there was time pressure put on an already short phone call. I started asking my questions immediately and my nerves calmed down once we got going. What I found disappointing, however, were her responses. I had put a lot of time and thought into these questions, but her answers felt pretty shallow and generic. There wasn’t much thought put into them. (I probably could have guessed most of her responses. Lesson #5- I’m not sure what this lesson is yet but I feel like there is something here related to the interview questions themselves.) Honestly, I got the feeling that she didn’t care too much about the interview.

When I asked her why she picked the subjects she picked she told me it was because she liked them and felt drawn to them. Because some of her photographs show the lives and situations of people who are living on the fringes of society I asked if any of these pictures have a message behind them. She said there isn’t an intentional message and that she wants to take powerful pictures that will touch people while “making an image that feels right to you.” Mary Ellen, who considers herself a portrait and documentary photographer, says photojournalism doesn’t exist anymore. (That’s pretty good to know since I was planning on becoming a photojournalist). Elsewhere on the internet I found an interview (which actually had a lot of similar questions to those that I asked her) where she expounded on the idea of photojournalism being dead. Apparently she thinks the only places it lives on are at newspapers. Everywhere else, she says, wants photoshopped images, which she considers to be illustrations. Since we have talked quite a bit about biases in this class I asked Mary Ellen if she thought biases comes across in her work. Her response:

“Of course it comes across in your work.”

The last thing I had time to ask her before ending our 7 minute interview was what type of camera she would have with her if I ran into her on the street. Naturally, it’s a pretty sweet camera- a Mamiya 7 with a flash. Mamiyas are medium format cameras and pretty heavy (maybe 5-6 lbs.) Thats kind of heavy to have with you at all times. Also, its a film camera.

“I only shoot analog, I never shoot digital,” she told me. That actually isn’t too surprising, but it was new information nonetheless. The time ran out then, so I thanked her and ended our phone conversation.

As I already said, I felt a little disappointed by her responses, but I still think it is really, unbelievably cool that I got to interview her. This interview, however, did leave me with the realization that sometimes the most flashy(not to make a bad joke), well known people are not the best candidates for an interview (Lesson #6). Depending on the purpose of the interview, the best person may be much lower on the tier but care about the interview and sharing thoughtful answers. And lastly, Lesson #7, being famous does sell products. Before this interview I had never considered buying a medium format film camera. But now, I discovered that I want a Mamiya with a flash.