Remembering Mary Ellen Mark … and how she helped me embrace an obsession, and gave me the courage to take chances I might otherwise not have taken …

Just about a year ago we lost one of the great photographers of our age, the brilliant and extraordinary Mary Ellen Mark.

Her work as a photojournalist, as a documentary photographer, as a portrait photographer — all of it inspired me. Immensely. And inspires me still. Particularly the lengths to which she would go to capture the images that meant something to her.

This quotation of hers has been in my journal for a long time now, and when I was first really starting out, I read it often, because it gave me hope and a belief in what I was doing, even when I doubted myself, even when I felt I was attempting work on the very edge of what I believed I could ever hope to reach …

And it applies whether we are talking about photography or about photo artistry:

“How do you know if photography is what you should be doing? If you love it, if it’s something that you can’t get away from, if you’re consumed by it, if you’re obsessed with it, then maybe it’s something you should be doing. It’s not an easy life. But if you love it, you may not be able to stop. Every time I start a new project or am assigned to photograph someone, I’m always terrified, thinking I’m going to fail. It’s always like jumping into cold water. … It’s still difficult and challenging for me to take a truly great picture. It’s very easy to make a good picture, but a great picture is a different story. And that challenge keeps me going back out there. You’re only as good as the next thing you do.”
— Mary Ellen Mark

And I’ll go on reading her words, and go on sitting with her photographs, quietly, long into the evening … breathing it all in, and remembering how lucky we were that this brave and amazing woman took up a camera and fell in love with what it made possible, what it unveiled.

– Sebastian