Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015)

Very powerful photography. This could have easily been expanded into a longer book and it would have been even better.

Makes me so sad how people with mental illness were treated before they stopped involuntarily confining people, giving treatments and medications against the will of the patients. Not that things are so much better now, but I wonder if these women would have had better lives if they'd had some control over their futures.

In 1975, photographer Mary Ellen Mark was assigned by The Pennsylvania Gazette to produce a story on the making of Milos Forman's film of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, shot on location at the Oregon State Hospital, a mental institution. While on set, Mark met the women of Ward 81, the only locked hospital security ward for women in the state: The inmates were considered dangerous to themselves or to others. In February of 1976, just before the ward closed (it ceased show more to exist in November of 1977, when it became the female section of a coeducational treatment ward), Mark and Karen Folger Jacobs, a writer and social scientist, were given permission to make a more extended stay, living on the ward in order to photograph and interview the women. They spent 36 days on Ward 81, photographing and documenting. Jacobs recalls their slow, inevitable assimilation: We felt the degeneration of our own bodies and the erosion of our self-confidence. We were horrified at the thought of what we might become after a year or two of confinement and therapy on Ward 81. show less

After watching the moving documentary Streetwise, I did a little research on Mark and came across this 1981 book of photography and vignettes of working prostitutes of Bombay. This is a collection of very candid, matter-of-fact pictures of female and transvestite prostitutes at work. After several pages of introduction covering how Mark came over more than one visit to befriend some of these people there are full page photos with captions.

Beautiful is the best way to describe "Prom" by Mary Ellen Mark. I have been a fan of her work for as long as I can remember. The pictures of the High School students are amazing especially with the large format Polaroid 20x 24 camera. The portraits go beyond just click and shoot with a happy smile and I would expect nothing less from Mary Ellen Mark. The Prom DVD that was added was a nice touch that made the portraits come alive.