Skip to footer

'Tiny: Streetwise Revisited' is an evocative followup from Mary Ellen Mark

The gifted portraitist captures decades of life lived on the edges.

Tiny: Streetwise Revisited By Mary Ellen Mark Aperture 176 pp.
stack of books What are you reading?
  • By Ann Hermes

The photography world lost a giant in the field when Mary Ellen Mark died in May. Known for her portraiture and documentary projects, Mark was a thoughtful photographer, uncovering the vulnerability in her subjects while giving them dignity. In her lifetime she produced 18 books, the last of which was Tiny: Streetwise Revisited.

“Streetwise,” which was published in 1988, grew from a Life magazine assignment focusing on runaway youth in Seattle. Mark was compelled to continue the assignment and focus on Erin “Tiny” Blackwell. Tiny was 13 years old when Mark first met her, living on the streets, resorting to prostitution to escape an unstable home life.

Despite tough circumstance, the images such as “Tiny at the amusement park with ‘Horsey,’ ” taken in 1983, show Tiny as a young girl, in many ways, with dreams of the future.

“I want to be really rich ... and live on a farm with a bunch of horses, which is my main best animal ... and have three yachts or more ... and diamonds and jewels and all that stuff,” Tiny told Mark, who quoted her in the book. 

The original “Streetwise” was released along with a film by Mark’s husband, Martin Bell, that focused on the experiences of Tiny and her friends as they moved through life on the streets of Seattle.

Tiny: Streetwise Revisited” displays the remarkable continuation of Tiny’s story as Mark went back to photograph her over the next 30 years. Through struggles with addiction and motherhood the viewer watches Tiny and her family mature and grow, with glimpses of the girl Tiny was still shining through. Mark’s patience and dedication to the story as well as her compassion and connection with Tiny are clearly visible in these thoughtful images. The body of work on display here is a true testament to the dedicated humanitarian photographer Mark was. 
Ann Hermes is a Monitor staff photographer.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Tiny: Streetwise Revisited' is an evocative followup from Mary Ellen Mark
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2015/1222/Tiny-Streetwise-Revisited-is-an-evocative-followup-from-Mary-Ellen-Mark
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe