MarkSwiecki

Hello Lens Flare Members, My name is Mark and I am a member of the Canadian Association of Photographic Art and the Nanaimo Arts Council. I live on Vancouver Island off the coast of BC, Canada. My images have won local, regional, national and international recognition which places me outside the rigid definitions of "pro" and "semi-pro" labels but the main reason I shoot images is that it brings profound joy to me. Photography has an element of magic to it. The capturing of fleeting moments in time is so compelling. There are photographs that speak to me and take me back to that moment when the shutter snapped. Slices of time in a gallery of the imagination which knows no boundaries is what has maintained my interest in this medium. My first camera was an old Brownie Box camera which I loved to borrow from my father at age 6. I still recall advancing the film, pushing the shutter and then waiting for the film to come back from the developer. Since then, I've used SLR, medium format and D-SLR cameras and high end scanners for creating photographic art. High Dynamic Range photography is another area of experimentation of mine lately. A few of the photographers that inspired me in various ways are Annie Leibovitz who portrays humans in a direct and often stunning way. The American landscape was the easel of the photographer Ansel Adams who painted with light on film. The Canadian Photographer, Gregory Colbert, whose images combine humans and animals in a mystical manner are quite striking. The graphic and often stark realism of Eugene Smith’s approach to the human condition and Edward Weston’s black and white photographs of nature, abstract forms, close-ups and landscapes are the work of a master photographer indeed. Keep Clicking! Mark