I grew up in California’s Central Valley and cut my photographic teeth as a teenager taking pictures of skateboarders and punk rock shows in the 1980′s. Using money I earned from working in the area’s packing sheds I enrolled in the photojournalism program at California State University, Fresno.
By 1990, after internships at The Los Angeles Times, The Arizona Republic and The Palm Beach Post, I was living out of a duffle bag in Eastern Europe and working with a remarkable group of journalists to grow Prognosis, an English-language newspaper based in Prague.
I left Prague at the end of 1990 and for the rest of the decade worked as a staff photographer at The Palm Beach Post. It was there that I met my wife, Stephanie, who was also a photographer at The Post. We moved to Connecticut about 10-years ago; Steph to study midwifery at Yale and me to become a photographer at the Courant.
In 2003/2004 I was the Knight Fellow at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication where I also earned a Master’s Degree. I love talking with people about photojournalism and have been a guest lecturer at Western Kentucky University, Ohio University, University of Hartford, Trinity College and the University of Connecticut.
Mark can be reached at mmirko@courant.com.