Interview with Mark Estes, Photographer "Witnessing Suffering and Beauty"

Mark Estes

all photos courtesy of Mark Estes,

used with permission

There's someone I'd like you to meet. 

This is Mark Estes, a photographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Mark is my friend and someone who is a great inspiration to me, both as an artist, and as an exceptional human being.

The Dalai Lama

photo by Mark Estes

Mark recently announced that he has enrolled in the Chaplaincy Institute for the Arts and Interfaith Ministries, with the intention of becoming an interfaith minister, and providing spiritual support to critically ill and dying patients and their families. He will still continue his photography career. He plans a non-traditional ministry that will integrate counseling, compassion and the creative arts.

Because Mark is such an intelligent and thoughtful person, I thought he would have a lot of good insights to share with artists who are committed to a spiritual and creative path. 

photo by Mark Estes

 "I don't make pictures of people, I make pictures with people.

It's a collaboration."

- Mark Estes

In our interview, Mark talks about The Artist's Way, how artists can help heal the world, working with the Dalai Lama of Tibet, being a hospice volunteer, and his life's mission, "to witness suffering and beauty."

photo by Mark Estes

"Being able to go where the emotion and the collaboration leads you

is as important in portrait photography

as it is in working with people in the hospital,

or in the hospice, or on the street." 

- Mark Estes

Read the interview, and view more of Mark's work, on Artists Up Rising. 

Mark Estes Interview