Projects

‘Ephemera’ - 2023

The ‘Ephemera’ collection of work is a blend of conceptual and process driven approach to traditional darkroom photography. It is an artistic and personal journey into his own personal relationship with the loss his mother, Kathy. This body of work aims to engage the viewer in exploring the essence and nature of loss through a visual narrative achieved through employment of experimental and innovative darkroom methodologies.

This collection is the finished manifestation of Mark E. Howard’s Master's Degree by research. This photographic collection was created using practice based methodology exploring the question: The Chemical Darkroom as a Source of Ongoing Potential in Contemporary Photographic Practice. Due to the restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic at this time Mark E. Howard presented the ‘Ephemera’ collection as an online virtual exhibition.

'Dichotomy' - 2018…

In the collection entitled ‘Dichotomy’ the nature of photography in the digital age is explored. Through his traditional wet photography practice Mark E. Howard re-imagines his own interpretation of the high dynamic range (HDR) photograph. In these works he takes the digital constituents within the creation of the HDR image as inspiration and redefines them in physical form in the creation of bespoke physical photographic works. Mark E. Howard endeavours with this work to evoke the observer, through the physical forms of the process and methodology, to engage with traditional photography mediums as a creative and relevant medium within contemporary art.

'Traditional Abstraction' - 2017

In my work practice I am occupied with the craft and the applications of traditional wet photography as a medium in contemporary art today. I wish to explore the wider creative potential of the darkroom, and to experiment with the employment of the materials that are established within traditional wet photography in a contemporary practice. This collection of work, entitled ‘Traditional Abstraction’, represents my response to these preoccupations. This work additionally explores the area of uniqueness, creating nonreproducible works, in the field of traditional wet photography, through the convention of the abstract image. The use of abstraction, for me, is to create works that dislocate the spectator into reinterpreting the finished work from their own personal point of view and of their pre-existing opinion of traditional wet photography as a versatile art medium.

'Watched Pots’ - 2017 

The present is just a psychological illusion. The human brain takes on average eighty milliseconds to process and render images in the visual cortex, thus what we see - when we look - is actually always the past.

Within the work of Mark E. Howard’s ‘Watched Pots’ endeavours the spectator to explore the human perception and interpretation of time and memory through video and the photographic medium. The work looks at the everyday moments of life and endeavours to impel the observer to re-interpret their own perception of the reality of time.