Mary Ellen Mark : Photographer
I was watching a movie today, The Silence of The Lamb, and as I’m watching I start looking up actors on Wikipedia and and one link lead to another and somehow I ended up reading about Night Moves, a classic detective movie from the 70s, back when movies were made for the sake of movies and not sheer opening day profits.
While Googling info on the movie I came upon this amazing photograph. If you don’t recognize them, this is a 15 year old Melanie Griffith and a much younger Don Johnson. The picture was taken by my new idol, Mary Ellen Mark a prolific photographer with a penchant for portraiture.
“She was an innocent 15-year-old who was madly in love with Don Johnson. She was just a little kid with a little baby voice, but her mom trusted me. Now everything has to become this big production. I could never get a picture of that intimate morning now.”
- Mary Ellen Mark
This picture is perfect on so many levels I can’t begin to describe it. Both Goofy and Elegant. It captures innocence at childhood’s end at the first step of adulthood. Perfectly contrasted. Perfect blacks, awesome whites. I just want to frame this image. Her work, of which I prefer the monochrome of course, is all a pursuit of capturing people’s essence or spirit if there is such a thing and I think she succeeds, just look at Brado below:
Her Website can be accessed by Clicking Here where the hefty section on Celebrities alone in the Gallery will keep you busy for a while.
Once again it is a feminine photographer that tops my list as the better photographers. There’s the ubiquitous Annie Leibovitz but my absolute favourite photographer is Sally Mann best known for controversial images of her children one of which has been called the Mona Lisa of Photography by many critics but her work with corpse is in my book a masterpiece, not to mention that she can take a simple picture of a tree and make it all mystical and magical.
I was also mesmerized by that picture when I saw it in Vanity Fair. It’s just so powerful to see young Melanie Griffith with Don Johnson goofing off beside her.
I posted it on Twitter a while back: http://twitter.com/vanou/status/2701553350
It even made me rent the movie, not a great movie, quite bizarre actually, but seeing that little kid was very interesting.
Maybe it’s just me but Don’s goofy looking laugh could also be like the awaiting mouth of a vampire. If I had any photoshop skills, I would make this photo out to be like a young innocent girl being hypnotized & then attacked by a robust vampire!
Do you see what I see?
I think you’ve been watching to many True Blood Episodes in a row
Oh no! I just watch a lot of Vampire movies/tv series. I’m fascinated by the genre. Hey, why do you think I use my internet handle as ‘Count Roshculla”?