You can travel the world with Mary Ellen Mark. Through her lens, you'll gain an intimate understanding of people you'd never dare approach on your own--acrobats in an Indian circus, teenage addicts and prostitutes in Seattle, Marlon Brando on the set of Apocalypse Now. In nearly half a century of documentary and portrait photography, she's pieced together a far-reaching study of the world along its fringes and found it can be a beautiful place, but kind of a bummer too. At the heart of her work is the most basic force driving a documentary photographer: a sense of the world's injustice, and a belief that there's power in witnessing its effects. Along the way, between magazine assignments, movie set photography and exhibitions of her personal work, she's become one of the world's most acclaimed documentary shooters. Thursday night's your chance to hear from Mark about her people-first approach to photography, and the challenge of turning moments in the most hectic of lives into simple--often black and white--compositions that invite a calm sort of consideration. She'll be selling titles from among her 16 published books, and signing them after the talk as well. Mark's presentation is free, and begins at 7 p.m. in Richland College's Fannin Performance Hall, F102, 12800 Abrams Road. Visit richlandcollege.edu.
Thu., Oct. 28, 7 p.m., 2010