Mary Ellen Mark

Renowned documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark began honing her art as a child, taking pictures with a Box Brownie camera. Born in Philadelphia in 1940, Mark eventually attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a degree in Art History and Painting in 1962. The following year, Mark won a Fulbright Scholarship to take photographs in Turkey. Many of the works she produced during her time there would later appear in her first book, "Passport," in 1974. After moving to New York in the late-'60s, Mark began photographing protesters, people from the transvestite community, and prostitutes. Her interest in documenting people who lived on the fringes of society would inform her acclaimed work for decades, with her photos appearing in publications like The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. Also around this time, Mark began acting as a unit photographer on movie sets, capturing production stills for films like "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), "Silkwood" (1983), and "Babel" (2006). Mark would win several accolades over the course of her career, including the Outstanding Contribution Photography Award from the World Photography Organisation, a Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House, and a Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography. Mark died on May 25, 2015. She was 75 years old.