I was nervous enough as it was when I found out that Mary Ellen Mark, formerly of the New Yorker, winner of countless awards, once voted the most influential female photographer, was about to have a conversation with me for ZOOZOOM Magazine, but tension suddenly grew tenfold when I found myself talking to an incredibly shaken version of the stoic eccentric I concocted from reading interviews. Mary had just been 'accosted' in Oaxaca Mexico, where she was currently teaching, and had just returned from the market before our phone interview... completely happy to still be alive, albeit without her wallet. It was definitely a moment of enlightenment for me, foreshadowed by how much I had read about Mary Ellen's uncanny ability to relate a quality of humanism in her subjects; now, she was my subject. more...