About

Mark Stetler (Bio)

Mark Stetler's life and career in photography span more than twenty years. Born in Cleveland, Stetler studied photography at the Art Institute of Atlanta where he earned a BA as well as top academic and best portfolio awards. Seeking to furtherhis education he moved to New York in 1993 to attend NYU. While in New York he soon began assisting many of the worlds most respected photographers such as Mary Ellen Mark and Richard Avedon. Inspirational relationships with Avedon and others led to creative ventures of his own in landscape, portraiture and fashion, fields where he currently shoots for clients worldwide. Stetler's fine art and portraiture work has gained recognition through Graphis GoldAward Top 100 Photographers 2016, PDN/Mamiya’s Emerging Photographer'sAward and the publication of his images of September 11th shot from the rooftop of his studio near the World Trade Center. Numerous exhibitions of his work have followed. Landscapes shot in and around Charleston, SC where Stetler currently resides have inspired a new body of work combining his affinity with nature with his fascination with the pinhole camera to create enigmatic images shot “without glass”.

Mark Stetler (Statement)

My interest in photography began at a very early age. Long drives in the family auto led to countless mental photographs as the Midwestern landscape blurred by. While my modern photographic processes tend to capture small moments of time, the pinhole takes larger spans of time and extracts these moments into a single image. The pinhole camera can readily incorporate time and motion into this lengthy exposure provoking associations with memory, time, or dreams. The camera absent of a technical lens transfers the reality of these moments into a dynamic play of light and shadows. This relationship both chemical and physical presents itself in the changes of light and objects. My interest in the ocean and the coastal environment seek to involve the viewer to restore our connections to the sea.