Reflection of Jefferson Memorial <\/em>by Mark Marroc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThere\u2019s something about your work and your love of DC that makes me think that I should have known that you were not American. Sometimes you use infrared and a fair amount of post-processing in your work. And I\u2019m curious if you\u2019re trying to accomplish some sort of feeling or mood besides a pretty picture and how DC as a city informs that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nWith my technical background, I always was a logical, technical person. Photography allows me to push a little bit more on my creative side. But again, this technical side and trying to experiment with different things: it\u2019s part of me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was just telling some friends that I struggle to find my signature in my work by myself because I\u2019m constantly changing some techniques. Infrared was one of the techniques that I just love to start working with because cannot see the result before post-processing. It\u2019s not something that I capture and look at the camera and see the result. You rarely can see it because the capture is all reddish. It\u2019s all tons of red, very dark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That pushes me to concentrate more on the scenario \u2014 what I\u2019m capturing \u2014 so I can work on the colors, on the light. I can work on that afterward in the post-processing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How much time would you say you spend in post-processing versus photography?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI don\u2019t spend much time post-processing for regular photography. I try to keep my processing as minimal as possible. I use some cropping, and I use light adjustment and color adjustment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I work at least one or two hours of infrared capture to start getting the photo prepared. Sometimes I spend a lot of time on the photo, adjusting light, adjusting color tones.<\/p>\n
I keep experimenting and trying things. When I think I\u2019m reaching the end of the process on a photo, I say, OK, let me turn this photo black and white and see what I can get from that. Let me invert the channels of the black and white and see how it gets inverted.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have a formal education in art I took a professional course in photography more than 10 years ago. It was hard for me to recognize myself as an artist because of imposter syndrome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m curious about the responses you\u2019ve had to your work. I\u2019m still harping on perhaps the D.C. element, which is to say that different Americans have different baggage that they bring to the iconic look of D.C. A MAGA Republican during, say, the Obama administration versus during the Trump administration would have a different view of your photographs. And a Democratic socialist during different administrations would have a different view of your photographs. So I\u2019m curious how you think about the baggage that other people bring to this iconic imagery, these iconic buildings, and the landscapes that you capture.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI tend to be careful coming from outside. I don\u2019t have the baggage of the culture that somebody has if they\u2019re born and raised here. I try to separate the political side from the historical side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is one capture. I was capturing the capital, and there was a left turn on the street. And I captured that. That was when the Democrats won the elections. That was the only one that I had the intention to say something political.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always an opportunity to learn something about the culture, the place, and the meaning behind things. This is part of the fun of this work, researching the monuments. I don\u2019t want to take just another picture of a monument. I try to find more purpose in them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your favorite building in D.C. to shoot?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI love the Lincoln Memorial. I love that place. The Capital is so beautiful. I love taking pictures of the Capital every time that I pass it. The Washington Monument; the area from the Washington Mall. It\u2019s magical because it\u2019s enormous. It\u2019s very well-conserved. Always beautiful, always clean. But if you ask my favorite, I think the Lincoln Memorial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why did you start taking photographs in the first place? Why photographs?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI can stop time with photographs. Each one is unique and can create memories. Every time I press the button on my camera, it will create a different image. Even in a controlled studio environment, each photo will be different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If I take a photo at the Lincoln Memorial every day for a year, they will all be different. This is why I find photography beautiful.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of my favorite photographs is of the Empire State Building with a dove flying away from it. I took this picture while walking through New York with my wife. I had my camera in hand and was taking pictures of anything and everything. This picture was just a quick point-and-shoot. When I looked at it later, I saw the dove flying away. I was like, Wow, I could never capture something like that again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I have a passion for street photography and taking spontaneous pictures.<\/p>\n
Fly Away from the Empire <\/em>by Mark Marroc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDo many of your photographs evoke particular memories?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Empire State Building one is very special to me. The other is this one (shows me the photo). It\u2019s of a person walking. It was for a photography assignment. We had to represent a theme from a movie or music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I chose the Coldplay song \u201cThe Scientist.\u201d The music video played in reverse, and I tried to represent that in the photo. I was playing with the flash, and the camera just went off. I looked later and saw that I got this person standing with a shade of a person passing through them. I thought it perfectly represented what I wanted to show for my assignment. I have a lot of photographs that bring back good memories and make me feel proud to have taken them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back to the Start <\/em>by Mark Marroc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIt reminds me of your Lemonade Shots. Can you tell me about your Lemonade Shots?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\nI\u2019m playing around with my mistakes. It\u2019s very cheesy, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. It\u2019s just a second look at some of the captures that went wrong. It\u2019s a small collection of my mistakes that I try to find beauty in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re more abstract captures. Something that I messed up with the focus or the light. I look into my process and try to improve it constantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recognize that we live in a culture that thinks we should be ashamed of mistakes. Mistakes are part of life. We grow with mistakes. When we start walking, we fall to the ground, and we improve on that. We shouldn\u2019t be ashamed of that. We should be ashamed if we don\u2019t try to be better every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those kinds of mistakes help us improve. And why not try to find beauty in that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lemonade 03 \u2013 Souls on the Monument<\/em> by Mark Marroc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWell, it\u2019s interesting the other two photographs we\u2019ve talked about the Empire State Building and then the walking man were both also happy accidents but not considered mistakes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nYeah, that\u2019s right. Some things in life happen for a reason. You don\u2019t need to plan everything. Something good can come from that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How often do you take pictures?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nLess than I want. It\u2019s been a month or so. It was a busy month. But usually every two weeks or three weeks, I\u2019ll go around with a camera without some fixed destination. I just get the camera, the tripod and start walking and capturing. Sometimes I go for long sessions. I think that the most extended session I took was eight or nine hours of walking around. And sometimes I just sit at a monument, see the people and start getting some captures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What advice would you give yourself as a 20-year-old about art and creativity?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nDon\u2019t limit yourself. You can do literally whatever you want. You just need to want to do it and put the effort into it. Put more time into your passion, into the things that you like to do. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love my day job. I love what I do. But I would say: spend more time doing more fun stuff without the need to deliver something. Just have fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For updates on all of our interviews and educational content, subscribe to our newsletter below.<\/h4>\n \n\t\t<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Marroc is a Brazilian street photographer based in Washington D.C. An IT professional by day, Marroc has found his muse in his second hometown, a place he adores for its pristine historicity. We caught up with the photographer ahead of his participation in artist Chissweetart\u2019s guest curatorial exhibition.\u00a0 Visit Mark\u2019s MakersPlace Storefront Can you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/marroc.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-3.png?resize=900%2C599&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/4.png?resize=900%2C1350&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/4.png?resize=900%2C1350&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1.png?resize=683%2C1024&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1.png?resize=683%2C1024&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5.png?resize=900%2C599&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5.png?resize=900%2C599&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Fly-Away-From-the-Empire-768x1024.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Fly-Away-From-the-Empire-768x1024.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Back-To-The-Start.jpg?resize=900%2C695&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Back-To-The-Start.jpg?resize=900%2C695&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/artifact.jpeg?resize=819%2C1024&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/artifact.jpeg?resize=819%2C1024&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/7.png?resize=900%2C599&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rare.makersplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/7.png?resize=900%2C599&ssl=1\")