Winter 2005 - University Photographers' Association of America

DEPTH OF FIELD
Mark, a practicing Mormon, has
been the photographer for Brigham
Young University for so long even
his university president introduces
him as"the old guy" to visitors. His
longevity stems in no small part
from having started in his current
position going back to his
undergraduate days as a
photography communications
major at BYU.
The photography bug actually
hit Mark in high school when, as a
sophomore he was tutoring a senior
who always seemed to be missing
from class, in trigonometry. Mark,
who would actually enter BYU as a
mathematics major, found out that
this student was on the yearbook
staff, and school gave him credit for
class attendance while in the
pursuit of 'yearbook business.' This
seemed like a good idea to Mark
who asked about joining the
yearbook himself. "I couldn't spell,
write or sell advertising, so I asked
what else there was," Mark recalls.
“Ever try taking a picture ? I was
sent to my first assignment, covering
a baseball game. They gave me a
Pentax Spotmatic with a 200 mm
lens and some TRI-X. Keep in mind
I had never shot anything before,
even family stuff. But they ended up
using some photos I had shot that
day." And so a career was born.
Mark became photo editor his first
year and co-editor of the entire
yearbook his second. He laughs as
he adds, "I like to say that I got into
photography to get out of class."
Mark has an enviable track
record over the years in the UPAA
Print Competition.
Since joining UPAA in 1983
(that old man thing again), and
winning Photographer of the Year
right out of the gate that same year,
he has placed a total of 71 prints
(this includes first, second, third
place and honorable mentions), six
of those being also Best of Show.
That is a remarkable rate of
placing an average of 3.4 prints in
every year's competition. As
someone who can appreciate
placing one or two prints a year (if
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