Mark Altman
"In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."
--ALFRED STIEGLITZ (1864--1946)
The world opened up to Mark Altman at age sixteen--for this is when he discovered photography. Altman began to develop a keen eye for the human condition and capturing images while living on a Kibbutz in northern Israel. He was away from home, enjoying his first adventures as a young adult, and savoring newfound freedom to explore his personal interests. Living with an adoptive second family, he remembers the first time that his "dad" showed him the beautiful black and white prints of an Olympus Pen FT, a half frame camera with interchangeable lenses. The sight of this camera and the beauty Mark saw in those black and white prints, planted the first seeds of what was to become his life's calling.
Born in Haifa, Israel to a Polish heritage, Altman now resides in the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Williamsburg. He has traveled the globe in search of adventure and photographic subjects. Constantly in pursuit of the perfect image and perspective of nature and of the human experience, his quest has taken him across the United States, to the Far East, Southeast Asia, and South America.
Altman's unique vision, technical capabilities (which he began honing back on the Kibbutz on a broken Canon) and bold personality allow him to capture some truly remarkable images in the faces, colors and textures he has encountered in his travels. When photographing a fellow human being, it is Mark’s ability to connect with, and win the trust of, people from all cultures, that makes his work unique. This ability has focused his lens into a window that gives the viewer a glimpse into the interiors of the mortal heart, wherever that heart is found upon this planet--going far beyond the objective scene to capture the many subjective emotional and cultural subtleties of everyday life in many places.
Much like Stieglitz's belief that photography creates "more than reality", Mark Altman's photographs provide an alternate reality in which the viewer is no longer simply viewing a subject but peering into the very essence of life; moments that would otherwise be lost into the abyss of time.