Primarily working in black and white, Mark is one of the best known female photojournalists. Although she is widely known as a photojournalist and documentary photographer, her images go beyond any and all labels. Mark’s photography addresses social issues such as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Children are a reoccurring subject throughout much of Mark’s work. She has always felt that children and teenagers are not “children,” they’re small people. She looks at them as little people and either likes them or doesn’t like them.

Inspired by Mary Ellen Mark’s “Children playing gangsters” along with vivid childhood memories from rising in an urban environment. I can remember seeing these kids in color every day when I was growing up. Children that belonged to back blocks, abandoned buildings, and a long list of incarcerated men. Few crown themselves as kings the rest are returned to the earth as abruptly as they’ve arrived.