Mark Abramson is a photographer based between Los Angeles and New York City. His journey of migrating as a child from the former Soviet Union through Europe to the United States with his family often inspires his storytelling.
Over the past decade, he has captured private moments of people he has shadowed longitudinally to the theater and drama that plays out in everyday moments on the streets. His roots are in newspaper, daily news photography from his time as an intern at the Washington Post and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Since 2011, he has been a freelance photographer in New York where he has documented politics, expanded into conceptual image making, and created long-term bodies of work on faith, spirituality, identity, and immigration. He has worked internationally and followed a migrant caravan through the interior of Mexico over months.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was the only photographer to embed with the Chevra Kadisha, a holy burial society, to document the impact of loss on the Orthodox Jewish Communities in New York.
He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and has worked on assignments and commissions for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The New Republic, TIME, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, Arena Magazine, Wired, Wired Japan, Newsweek, El Nuevo Día, Univision, Getty Images, and others.
EXHIBITIONS:
2017 – Two Face, solo container exhibition, Rotterdam Photo Festival (https://www.rotterdamphotofestival.com/exhibitors2017)
2016 – Two Face, solo exhibition at United Photo Industries, Brooklyn NY (http://www.unitedphotoindustries.com/portfolio/two-face/)
2015 – Photoville NYC – Emergi Cube exhibition curated by James Estrin of the New York Times: Neither Here Nor There (http://archive.photoville.com/2015-emergicubes/neither/)
2011 – 25CPW Gallery: Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma group exhibition
AWARDS/RECOGNITION:
2021 - Winner/recipient of the 2021 Yunghi Kim Grant
2016 – The New York Times Fourth Annual Portfolio Review – Selected participant out of 150 chosen from a global pool of photographers
2016 - Instagram - Recognized as a a Featured User with a 45K following.
2014 – The New York Times Second Annual Portfolio Review – Selected participant out of 150 chosen from a global pool of photographers
2014 - Lookbetween chosen attendee for second annual event, one of 100 chosen emerging global photographers, Charlottesville, VA: LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph
2014 – Photo District News - October issue, featured artist
2012 – NPPA: The Best of Photojournalism, Honorable Mention for Multimedia Package: Altered Paths for The Chronicle of Higher Education
2011 – XXIV Eddie Adams Workshop participant – chosen as one of 100 participants
2011 – XXIV Eddie Adams Workshop – Wall Street Journal award winner
PANELS:
2016 – Encuentro Fotográfico México – Panel Talk: “La imagen documental y el de-constructivismo ruso
2016 – Photoville NYC – Panel Talk: The Presidential Campaign Through New Eyes
2015 – Photoville NYC – Panel Talk: There’s No Place Like Home: Migration, citizenship, and statelessness globally
2014 – Open Show #11, Featured Artist, New York City