I’m not even sure how I ended up at Mark Steinmetz’s site, but I did, and it’s rare that I click within any site more than, oh, say, 10 times, but, again, I did – indeed, I clicked on every picture of every gallery.  His black and white work is technically very good, but moreover his portraits manage two things at once, a howl and a subtlety.  There is present in them that, how should I say, hollow isolationism that is so ubiquitous (and often so affected) in today’s portraiture, but these have something more gentle, caring, complex in them than just that, which makes them more remarkable.

I’m admiring it.  Thank you for it, Mark.

photo: from South (1994-2005), ©Mark Steinmetz.

photo: from South Central (1991-1993), ©Mark Steinmetz.