What will I write about myself as a street photographer?
I don’t think I’m a photographer of the usual professional variety. Photography as a light painting is a central tool in managing my daily routine and is an inseparable part of it.
I am in my mid-fifties, for 30 years at the same time as photography I had a very successful career in the technological world until it was stopped due to a late outbreak of PTSD due to events in my distant past.

The camera is part of my protection package, it is between me and the world, it calms and protects me and allows me to go out and experience it.

I started with nature photography, when you are post-traumatic you are always looking for peace in all its forms and I found it in photography of wildlife and birds.
Until I arrived in Paris, where I found shelter from the mental storm that befell me and with the help of the camera I switched to street photography.

Paris amazed and fascinated me and does so every day.

I decided to move to live there and take pictures in its streets.
The life of a post-traumatic is not easy, but after you learn to look forward and not to the past, you find that there are also benefits. You live in hyper-arousal, constantly scanning your surroundings and paying attention to details that others don’t notice or take for granted.

This arousal combined perfectly with street photography, bringing different and diverse details to the documentation that I collect and present.

I photograph in motion, this is also how I photographed in nature, I walk in the city sometimes for whole days with the camera around my neck, my hand on the trigger and I photograph in an unstaged and unplanned way things and people that cross my path and route.
It’s a great thrill, like a journey into the unknown full of surprises and interesting details. I shoot fast and a lot, like a hunter of details, each tour can yield hundreds of photos, always in motion and always in a fast-shooting mode, taking advantage of the possibility to shoot eight frames per second.

Somehow I slowly switched to photographing in black and white, in monochrome, photographing in monochrome in my opinion emphasizes the details in the picture, makes the picture more realistic and striking, and I have already said that I like details. Unstaged and natural facial expressions in all kinds of situations, objects, leaves and trees against the background of the magical architecture of Paris as well as the reflection of the spring sun in the ripples of the Seine River.

That’s why monochrome is the technique I chose to express the image I see through the camera lens.
Today I use a Nikon D850 DSLR camera, I am conservative and this camera served me faithfully in nature photography so I adopted it and the technique for the Parisian nature.
I do all my work using fixed lenses, my favorite is the 85 mm 1.4 through which I see what I choose to photograph in the most appropriate way.

This is my story, this is my photographic work.

With gratitude and respect,

Mark Heier

You can write to me,                                                                                                                         I would appreciate comments on the photos and my work.