MARK HARMEL
Los Angeles, CA
mark@harmelphoto.com

After multiple decades of working as a photojournalist and commercial photographer, Mark Harmel transitioned to creating fine art works called Sightings. His newest series is the Desert Collection.

Sightings implies vision from a distance

                 Sightings is weather…and weathered  faces,

a glimpse of the ephemeral, the figure 

just rounding a corner, a storefront. 

                 Sightings is the latent music of a poised piano.

Mark Harmel's Sightings are more direct than that—

movement captured, meaning and metaphor defined.  

                 Sightings is Elvis leaving the building…

                 but only to pose on the sidewalk.

Perhaps Insight-ings is more appropriate; 

                Sightings is a fur coat in New York, 

                a wetsuit in Los Angeles,  and the roads between.

the images open,  focal planes expanding outward 

and inward simultaneously. 

These images exist in the world, unnoticed by most.

They must be sought to be seen.

                Sightings are made.

NOTABLE

KEE Gallery, Gallery 825, TAG Gallery, Josh Mitchell Art Gallery, Communications Arts 2005 - Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery
APA 2004 Best of Show - G. Ray Hawkins Gallery