Carolyn King submits Mark Peckmezian

Mark Peckmezian is a Contemporary Canadian photographer working out of Toronto. He is currently working on his BFA at Reyerson University. I enjoy his portraiture work because he employs mostly available lighting and I feel that this gives a true and intimate insight to the life of the subject. Many of his photos remind me of Ryan McGinley's I Know Where the Summer Goes, conveying a playfulness that is prominent in the social scenes of students and young adults. On his website he differentiates his work between "Photographs" and "Pictures" which I find interesting because I feel that mere "pictures", can be considered a special type of photograph, and shouldn't always be so quickly dismissed as lucky or clever captures of time. They too can be viewed and even appreciated as artwork and I think they can be critiqued as such as well. His "pictures" which are quaint and goofy, are often blurry, out of focus, improperly exposed or even sillier (but awesome at the same time) displayed as test strips, with obvious gradient changes throughout the image. Though not very experimental, his "pictures" demonstrate that Peckmezian has a keen eye and unique compositional strengths. The thing that I gained most from viewing his website and reading his mini bio was that

just because we are still "students" doesn't mean we have to keep our work shut up inside of portfolios that we don't show anyone. Rather we should be bold and submit our work wherever we can and start marketing ourselves because no one is going to do it for us.

Can I get a big "like" button?!

http://www.markpeckmezian.com/index.html