I recently contacted Documentary Magnum photographer Mark Power for a brief interview. I have followed Mark’s Work for the past few years and feel he is the perfect example of the documentary photographer, with projects taking him all over the world, his most current is a book series named ‘Good morning America’. His work focuses on landscape, whether that be urban or rural, as well as the people and objects that occupy these spaces. He has also produced some more personal work, more recently ‘Home’ about his daughters move to university, which I feel is reflective of the kind of work I wish to create myself, with a focus on family, change and dynamics involved.
Thanks again to Mark for his honesty and time.
B: What do you think is important about the documentary practise?
M: Well, I’d like to answer that is by telling you how it feels to walk around ParisPhoto these days, as I did a couple of weeks ago. Documentary, per se, doesn’t seem very fashionable at the moment, but this has happened before and it always comes back. Of course, I don’t try to follow fashions, but make documentary work because I think it’s important, and because, without it, we would be missing a crucial visual history of the world.
Back to Paris, I had to ask myself what most of the work on show (very fashion-orientated) would ‘mean’ a few years time. Probably not very much. Whereas documentary work, when good, is invariably interesting, and generally becomes more so as time passes.
B: Whilst projects like “Leaving Home” are obviously very personal to you, with focus on your immediate family, do you feel your other work such as ‘Good Morning America’ still hold that personal perspective?
M:The Home project was an excuse to make something deeply personal, which of course I don’t usually do. My work in America might seem somewhat detached, which is a strategy I employ as an outsider… I’m looking at the country from a discrete distance although, conversely, the equipment I use means I get extraordinary detail at the same time. You might call it an ‘intimate distance’. Of course, the fact that I am here in America as I write this implies that the work is deeply personal… I have to be here to make the work and although it may seem objective there is (of course) a good deal of subjectivity involved. The work is diaristic as much as anything, so, yes, in its own way it’s as as personal as anything I’ve ever done. If it’s not pretentious to say, my work is (among other things) largely about my relationship with America.
B: How is it that you select your subjects, whether it be a space, building or individual when you’re travelling through not just cities but countries, with so much to record?
M: That’s a difficult question, but I have many ideas without the time to work on them all. Therefore I must make certain decisions that are based on logic as well as a kind of gut reaction. In the end, I photograph subjects, places, individuals, that interest me. Luckily not everyone is interested in the same things!
B: What effect do you think the widespread use of the smartphone and instagram is having (or will have) on photography, is it positive?
M: Personally I welcome the democratisation of photography. There is such an interest in the medium now. Of course, it’s no longer glamorous, as it used to be, to call oneself a photographer, but I can live with that. One benefit of smart phones is that the rise in ‘citizen journalism’… Almost everything newsworthy that happens in the world is now photographed by someone. This takes pressure of the likes of myself to try to chase these kind of stories and instead leaves me free to work on broader subjects over longer periods of time. Believe me, it wasn’t always like this.
B: I read that you studied life drawing and painting, do you feel they have influenced how you work?
M: Definitely. In essence, when you’re standing in the life room making a drawing you begin with a blank sheet of paper, usually a rectangle. I learned that you have to use all the space of the paper and not just plonk the figure in the middle. All the corners are also important, which is of course true in photography as well. So compositionally it was useful, but I would also say it taught me how to look hard at something, to make visual decisions, and to concentrate.
B: How did it feel documenting the ‘Leaving Home’ project and delving into the intimacies of family and your personal life, did you enjoy this way of working?
M: I loved doing that project, but it only worked because the rest of my family agreed to be open and honest. This was especially true in Chilli’s case. There was only one moment when she flatly refused to be photographed, and I perfectly understood why that was. I’m surprised the work resonated with so many people, but having been involved in teaching for 25 years, I know how important it is to somehow make deeply personal work more universal. So many people have experienced children leaving home while others live in dread of it. Perhaps, one day, if/when you have children of your own, you’ll understand this better.
B: I really enjoy your project ‘Camera Buff’ and the use of archival imagery, it made me think back to an image on your instagram depicting you and Jo leaving your parents house for the final time. I found the image so poignant and personal, is this focus on family something you would potentially revisit, with a new perspective on your personal archive?
M: I don’t feel the need to do any more family work at present. The ‘Camera Buff’ project was extremely traumatic to make (but also cathartic; it was a strange mix of the two) since it followed closely after the death of my mother. When my father died last year I didn’t feel any need to make work about that, even though I am now officially an orphan. That said, I did bring home a huge bag full of all his ties – a kind of history of my dad. One day, perhaps, I might do something with them, but it has to be done in the right way. At the moment I don’t know how that would be.
B: You’ve worked in some amazing places (Russia, Poland and America). Where would you like to explore and document next?
M: To be honest, I want to work more in Britain now. I’m tired of travelling long distances and I feel it’s time to come home.
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