My guest today is Glasgow born photographer Mark Mann, who has built this stunning career photographing some of the most iconic celebrities in the world, from Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Iggy Pop, the Black Eyed Peas, to Seinfeld, Rihanna, Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, Bradley Cooper, Willie Nelson and hundreds of others.
The funny thing is, Mark pretty much stumbled into photography in the most unexpected way in his late teens, which is a story that he shares, and then ended up on a plane to New York City, where, with little experience, he found himself dropped into the world of hip hop and music, focusing his lens on some of the early icons in the space.
He fell in love with the stories that people's faces told and started spending more and more time developing this really powerful signature approach to hyper vivid, close up, black and white portraits that in some way, it kind of captures a moment, a mood, a vibe, a story.
And behind the scenes, it's been anything, you know, but a straight line or an easy path remark.
As is common in the world of photography, there's what the public sees and then there is the reality of the photographic life, which is not often an easy one.
But for him, it has been the source of profound connection and a life of stories that will live in his mind long after the images themselves fade.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is good life project.
Glasgow was a great place to grow up.
It really was.
I'm jewish, and the jewish community was a little bit bigger than it is now.
It's dwindling, but it was great culturally.
And, I mean, I didn't really experience any anti Semitism of any notable note.
You see more in Glasgow, the Catholics and the Protestants were so busy fighting that, once again, if you were jewish, it's like, oh, we don't care.
So, I mean, it was.
I thought it was a great place to grow up.
Yeah, it sounds like.
It's funny when we ask all of our guests, just, like, fill out a quick form before we hang out, just to get a little bit of background.
And the bottom question is always, it's something like, is there anything else we should know?
And your answer was, I may be in the bathtub when we're speaking.