Mark Woods
Fine Art Black & White Still Photography & Commercial Cinematography
Woods was raised in a Californian family of photographers. His father had a portrait studio in Hollywood while his grandfather bought and released “Reefer Madness.” Woods never thought much about growing up in his father’s dark room, or being the test subject for lighting and film tests until he went to the University of California at Berkeley in 1968 and discovered his interest in making images.
He quickly became focused on creating both street images and more formal subject matter within his subject major, Photo Ethnographic Anthropology. By the time he graduated from Cal in 1971, he was the university’s preferred photographer for student activities, the jazz festival, and other publications (credited as Francis Woods). He moved back to Hollywood to work in the film industry but continued to shoot stills. He opened a still studio in the Colombia Studios still studio where he shot print ads. Eventually he closed the studio and began working full time on film productions. With his background in stills he quickly became a Director of Photography. He has shot and directed over 1000 commercials and 25 features in a 30 year career earning multiple awards. He’s taught advanced cinematography at CSUN, many years at the American Film Institute, National University, and Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.
In 2004 he built a darkroom as he scaled back his film work to focus on large format black and white still photography. Since then, his multiple still series include Berkeley 1968 to 1973, W/O & Later (Hollywood Behind The Scenes ’73 to ‘79, and he has other works in progress: Pasadena’s Arroyo, the Huntington Gardens Early Chinese Structures, along with flower portraits and other still lifes. His landscapes are shot in natural light while his smaller subjects are lit with strobes, tungsten, or natural light. Woods also pursues a Pictorialist muse along with his photo realism using classic analog time-honored methods throughout his work.
Biography