CBR15Bingo: Africa (contains images and information about the Ethiopian famine of 1985)
I love photojournalism / photo stories so I was interested to get this book of Mary Ellen Mark’s work. This is a series of books that the Smithsonian did of “photographers at work,” with this volume containing an interview with Mark and a variety of her photographs. I am a big Mary Ellen Mark fan so I was excited to get more insight into her process and how she approaches photography. The selection of photos here is nice, ranging from the Ethiopian famine to the Indian circus, and I will keep this volume for my collection.
Overall, while I appreciate that this is not meant to be a comprehensive history of her work, I felt that this was an underwhelming collection (only 62 pages, which I also didn’t realize when I asked for it). The interview seemed shallow and I wish they’d gone into more depth about her thought process and her experiences in the field. It felt almost like a high school student interviewing someone, with basic questions and basic answers. I did find the insight she provided about how she hates it when people crop her photos since she does that when she shoots to be useful information, and I also liked the overview about the state of the magazine industry at that time. It was pretty grim to contemplate that it was only going to get worse and Life was going to close entirely, as that was the magazine she brought up as having a particularly good photo editor. I also wish they had more information about each photograph, as they just provide one line descriptions like “Rio de Janeiro” or “Snake charmers.” The thing I like best about photojournalism is the information that the photographers and journalists provide in concert with the photographs, and I was disappointed that there wasn’t really any information provided here about the subjects or the context, beyond what was in the interview.
Again, Mary Ellen Mark is an amazing photographer so these photos are all excellent and worth seeing. The famine ones in particular are hard to see but important. I also thought her Falkland Road and Zimbabwean photos were striking. I just wish this had more depth and insight, as well as fuller captions for the photos themselves.
Warnings for: graphic photos of famine victims, nudity, misgendering, children with cancer.