Atlanta-based photographer Mark Alberhasky creates images to stop people in their tracks

On the “City Lights” series “Speaking of Art,” local artists share insights into their influences, processes, and experiences in town. This edition features photographer Mark Alberhasky. “In the broadest sense, I create images to stop people in their tracks,” says Alberhasky. “Unlike a photojournalist whose work documents reality, I consider myself a photo-emotionalist… my work is successful when it conveys to the viewer what I felt or saw in my mind’s eye.” 

Alberhasky got started in photography at the age of 18 when he met a woman and fell in love. He didn’t have a good picture of her and wanted to create one. A freshman at the University of Kentucky at the time, he ran into someone carrying a Pentax camera on campus.

He asked, “How do you take photos with a camera like that?” He was taken to the photojournalism building that night and taught how to load film, shoot, develop, and print. The magical experience of watching a piece of blank white paper turn into a photograph in developing a solution hooked Alberhasky. He got sidetracked by a career in medicine but came back to the craft and started a serious career in photography at age 50.