THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Mark J Harlow is a National Award Winning Nature - Wildlife Photographer from Minnesota. He is also a Fine Art Print Master, spending over four decades in the Fine Art Print Making Industries. A self admitted "social hermit" for many years, Mark had not had a website On-Line for nearly 7-years. "I do what I do because I truly love nature and nature photography. I don't seek (but appreciate) the recognition to keep going". In just his second year back (after a 22 year absence), Mark declined opportunities to work with  Nikon USA, Getty Images, and National Geographic, choosing instead to continue on his own with his minimalistic photo style and staunch ethics. Mark is one of the original true minimalist nature photographers of the digital era and has always been a true minimalist photographer.

"I consider my self a minimalist both photographically and editing wise. The digital photography mindset has been... get it close, fix it in post or crank up the ISO settings and shoot in "speed or continuous" drive modes. Some folks spend many minutes if not hours editing just one image. Those photo capturing mindsets or editing styles do not interest me. My motto is... take pride in your in your exposure. Photograph like you will be judged on your work straight out of camera. That is how I photographed from day one and what I've strived for the last 20+ years."... says Harlow.

Mark has been involved with photography officially since 1976 (although he was taking pictures whenever possible since 1970. He also chose High End Imaging and Fine Art Printing as a career in 1983. He was trained to run a laser scanner for Color Separation, a specialized career, working with critical color reproductions over those 20 years. He has been photographing professionally since the early 1980's and digitally since March 27, 2004. Mark is a staunch Single Drive Mode exclusively... photographer who does not follow the crowds or latest trends. He is one of the true minimalist photographers of the digital era and has always been a minimalist photographer.

None of his photography is ever taken with a Pre Burst, Burst or Continuous Drive Mode. ALL images are a one click at a time, (especially the action Wildlife action imagery). He never baits, or photographs backyard, personal or personal private property subjects. All images shown required loading up his vehicle and going out to locations (others may seldom leave their property or go to game farms, game preserves, or have even built their own private preserve environments where they photograph from). All Wildlife is truly wild, all events happened naturally, organically and unscripted. 

Image Editing is done at a minimum. No automated actions, editing plug in's, saved presets, focus stacking, stitching or traditional stacking, no HDR, foreground/background separation are ever used. Mark still only edits in the 12 plus year old Photoshop CS4 or CS6 with minimal adjustments...that's it! Most edits are easily done in less than a minute, not dozens of minutes or hours.