Mark Cohen was born in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania. Today, he still lives in Wilkes-Barre and has spent most of his life wandering the streets of his native city. Entirely self taught, he learnt photography and darkroom techniques from reading books and magazines, even if he attended a course with Key Heyman, the only real photography teacher he had, at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His influences are various. He cites Henri Cartier Bresson, Josef Koudelka, Gary Winnogrand, Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander. It is visually difficult to see any of these influences in Mark Cohen’s photographs as his unique straight forward style breaks all the rules. In the world of Mark Cohen, there are hardly any photographs giving us a sense of the place. Instead, close ups of body parts, headless bodies and cut legs make Mark Cohen’s surreal and sometimes abstract world. His unique way of framing pictures is his trade mark. In his own words he went down an original path because he was isolated out in Wilkes-Barre and he didn’t study photograph in school. He used to walk and take photographs with a wide angle lens, mostly using a 21mm “aggressively” taking photographs from a two foot distance. He learned to know the distance between his lens and his subjects and most of the time he took photographs without looking though the viewfinder but by just snapping someone (or a part of his body) very quickly. This unique way of taking photographs makes the book dynamic and we can feel the walk, the snap, the intrusion and also the gesture that will lead to the photograph. Mark Cohen also uses a flash “to give a zone from 2 to 8 feet that you don’t have to focus and don’t have to worry about the subject being blurred”. He also uses flash because he likes “the phenomenological effect he would get shooting at twilight”. The whole process is very intrusive and certainly challenging especially in a city like Wilkes-Barre. The book is a great reflection of Mark Cohen’s unique genre. As you go through the pages, there is a progression in his work. It starts with a more classic approach to photography (from late 60′s and early 70′s) with some scenes of everyday life. Then there is a turning point in the 70′s where his photographs mostly focus on close ups of body parts, making the backbone of the book. Grim Street by Mark Cohen is a very spectacular photobook to look at.
1967- Headless horseman
1974 – Upside-down girl
1975 – Boy’s chest, man’s finger
1973 – Knee
1976 – Laughing man’s teeth
1978 – Kid’s face and hand on swing