Beyond the Surface: Photographer Mark Elzey's Intimate Eye for Detail and Human Connection
Mark Elzey
Beyond the Surface
Fashion, portrait, and commercial photographer working across New York, Los Angeles, and Europe. A conversation about inheritance, skin, music, and the art of genuine human connection.
Photographer. New York, Los Angeles, Europe.
Mark Elzey was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and has been making art since the age of five. His grandmother, a teacher and artist, shaped everything: as a toddler, he spent hours beside her while she painted, absorbing her philosophy, her focus, and her habit of working to music. Both the practice and the soundtrack came with him.
Placed early in magnet and charter schools across the American South as a gifted creative, he found his intellectual inspirations in the detail-obsessed: MC Escher, Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Da Vinci in particular opened a lasting fascination with the place where art, mathematics, and physics converge.
Several of Mark's closest childhood friends had vitiligo or were fully freckled. That early intimacy with skin in all its variation became foundational: he now dedicates a significant body of work to photographing individuals with vitiligo and freckles, celebrating the intricacies that others might overlook. His world is rooted in self-expression, originality, and the beauty of skin as a living surface.
Now based in Brooklyn, Mark works across fashion, portrait, and commercial photography in New York, Los Angeles, and Europe. His imagination, as he puts it, strings him around the city with music as its nourishment. He is represented by Laird and Good Company.
Freckles, vitiligo, melanin, texture. Mark photographs what most retouch away, in dedication to the childhood friends who first showed him that difference is where beauty lives.
Inherited directly from his grandmother's studio. He edits at full volume across genres, using the music to unlock perspectives within images and find the soul in each frame.
Years at Apple taught him how people relate to technology and to each other. He brings that same understanding to every shoot. If he is not excited, why should his subject be?
Your grandmother is clearly at the foundation of everything. What specifically did she pass on to you, beyond the love of art itself?
Art is a part of my DNA because of her. As a toddler I spent hours at her side while she painted and listened to her favourite music. She was a teacher, but more than that she was someone who understood that making things required a certain kind of environment, a certain state. The music was part of that. The patience was part of that. She showed me that art carries more than a meaning to life. Art is a connection to people.
"Every painting felt like a conversation. I did not know it then, but I was being trained to see."
Tell us about your relationship with music in the editing process.
My creative process revolves around music, from shooting to editing. I feel it allows me to see the soul in images. I edit at full volume, switching between genres depending on what the work needs. Different music unlocks different parts of an image. Sometimes the right song will reveal something in a photograph that I had not seen before. I become fully immersed in it. It is the closest thing I have to my grandmother's studio.
Why freckles and vitiligo? What draws you specifically to photographing people with these qualities?
Several of my closest friends growing up had vitiligo or were fully freckled. That is where this comes from: childhood, intimacy, the faces I grew up with. I photograph these individuals in dedication to those friendships and to that time. What I found then, and what I keep finding now, is that the things the beauty industry tends to minimise or retouch away are precisely the things that make a face extraordinary. Skin is not a problem to be solved. It is the subject.
You have a background in Apple. How has that shaped your approach to photography and to clients?
Being in that environment allowed me to better understand the connection between people and their relationship with technology. I was constantly teaching, constantly translating, finding the language that made someone feel confident rather than confused. Now I use the same skills on set.
If I am not excited, why should my subject be? That is a principle I carry into every job. Energy is contagious. My job is to create the conditions for something real to happen.
How do you see the art world changing, and how do you position yourself within that?
It is forever changing, and I think the onus is on the artist to keep up with an open mind. For me that means practicing detachment with images: being genuinely receptive to feedback, not precious about what I have made. This opens many other doors when you are able to listen and hear what your client actually needs. I stay true to my vision while staying adaptable. Those two things are not in conflict.
How important is wellbeing to your practice?
Wellbeing is everything in everything. My practices include meditation, reflection, and long walks. They lift my spirit and provide clarity even in times of stress. I work hard and listen to my heart and soul to decide my next steps. That is the beauty of life to me: desire the best for yourself and those around you, and life will reward you with the experiences you need to move forward.
Stay curious,
