Mark Power is an experienced documentary photographer whose work has been widely exhibited and published in several major magazines including the Sunday Times, the Observer, the Independent and the Telegraph.

He began to photograph the Dome in late 1996 when the site was still a toxic wasteground. Three years and over one hundred visits later his work has shifted from bleak black and white into vivid colour. The exhibition, which grows with each venue, has been seen in London and Florence, and will continue to tour Britain before The British Council take it to Latin America and Australia in Mid-2000. A monograph of this work is due for publication in May 2000.

Mark’s previous project, The Shipping Forecast , the result of an intensely personal photographic journey, lasting four years (1992-96), has been touring European galleries for the past three years and the accompanying book, published by Zelda Cheatle Press (now in its third edition), was such a tour de force that he has been deservedly thrust into national and international prominence, inviting comparisons with Joseph Koudelka, Ray Moore and especially Tony Ray-Jones. A 25 minute documentary on The Shipping Forecast made by Meridian TV won the award for best programme in the Southern Region national Television Awards, 1997. Awards for that work included the Mosaique award from Luxembourg, the Yann Geffroy documentary prize from Italy and the Special Jury Prize in the Oskar Barnack Award, Germany. It also received three nominations for the prestigious Citibank Prize of world photography.

He has also been selected by the Riksmuseum in Amsterdam to produce new work for their contemporary collection and an exhibition in October 2000.

Mark Power is a Senior Lecturer in Editorial Photography at the University of Brighton, and has been a member of Network Photographers since 1988.

Following your artistic nose and not the dictates of a commissioning editor is the way great imaginative documentary work starts. Artistic pressure led Mark to research the sounds that he had heard for years coming from the BBC radio as storm warnings and culminated in The Shipping Forecast. Through practical assignments we will help to develop strategies to harness these addictive urges by practically examining how to approach such a personal project and discuss the constraints that so called documentary photography commissions can impose on doing your ‘own thing’. Mark is an experienced tutor in reviewing and initiating participants’ work - so bring along both work in progress and ideas for projects.