Rosie Marks

Photographer Rosie Marks has an unrequited fascination with her subjects. Drawn to strangers, she captures both the mundanities and extremities which make up their day-to-day lives - whether that’s teenagers shopping on Oxford Street or an Instagram model with MM-sized breast implants receiving surgery. Marks’ work explores the often contradicting personalities that exist beneath surface-level aesthetics with a subtle humour, resulting in portraits which are both playful and complex.

You shoot a broad range of subjects from different walks of life. What are you drawn to when taking a portrait?

"Real people. I'm interested in what might be considered ordinary or mundane. At the same time, I’m trying – and sometimes unsuccessfully – to go deeper with a subject, beyond the persona that a subject might have carved out for themselves for others to see. I suppose all of my images put a lens on people who might otherwise be overlooked."

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen whilst shooting?

“A woman taking her pet bird to get her hair done at the hairdressers. Or watching someone get illegal silicone butt injections, where they push silicone into different holes in your ass until it spurts back out.”

The accompanying text to your debut book, 08.14-10.19, was written by a psychologist. How would your psychologist describe you?

"The first word that would come to mind would be voyeuristic. But I feel like there are negative connotations with that word. Interrogative, conflicted, attentive, insecure."