Recent Photographs by Mark Bugzester

August 15 – Sept 21
Opening reception August 15  6 – 10pm

The Great Highway is excited to present the Recent photographs of Mark Bugzester. Please join us Friday Aug 15th for the opening.

Mark Bugzester was born in New York City in 1954, to parents who were both artists. The family moved to Paris when he was a year old, but returned to New York two years later where Mark spent the rest of his childhood. First attending a well noted public school in New York. A repository of children of artists and writers at the time. Such as  Mark Rothko, Stewart Davis, the playwright Donald Bevan. After attending an engineering college for Two semester, he decided it was not for him and he worked odd jobs, mostly in the arts.

His father had given him a Pentax camera age 14 and a book published by magnum “The concerned photographer.” This was his introduction to the work of such photographers as Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz and Werner Bichof. Their work inspired in him a passion for the camera. He decided to dedicate himself to a life in photography. At age 21 Mark landed a job as assistant to Bill King and was the assistant studio manger to Bill Conners & Joseph Santoro. He also did Printing for famous photographers such as Arnold Newmen, Stan Scheffer And as result he subsequently he immersed himself in black and white photography. In the late seventies, he moved to Paris and worked on his photography, landing jobs with French and Italian Conde Nast and numerous other magazines publishers .. He spent time in Milan, back in New York, and then Paris again for most of the eighties, where he had a number of exhibitions of his work.

He opened his first fine art photo lab in Los Angeles in 1992, moving it the Rue Daguerre in Paris two years later, and then moving it yet again to Great Jones Street in downtown New York. The events of 9/11 essentially destroyed the business, as did the advent of digital photography, and Bugzester re-invented himself as a graphic designer. He never lost his passion for fine art photography, even after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2006 and had a stroke in 2011, remaining firmly committed to his art. He still lives, works, and plays in New York City.

Bugsy, I Don’t Shake When I Shoot (Trailer) from de PAOLA PICTURES on Vimeo.