Artist spotlight: Photographer Mark Cline exhibits at The Knot

Photography was one way Cloquet area resident Mark Cline dealt with an enormous personal setback. As a 55-year-old married father, he received his first serious DSLR camera in 2007, shortly before his wife was killed in a gas explosion at their cabin. After three years of nursing his kids back to health, his corporate head hunting business never recovered. Two years ago, he moved here to be close to Lake Superior.

When Cline found he could leave his boys for a while, he began walking his rural neighborhood, camera in hand. With the camera, he could get into a flow and shut out the outside world. He learned to improve his photos by consulting sources: the internet, workshops, and a stint with Carlton County’s award-winning photographer Craig Blacklock in Utah.

Cline first focused his camera on wildlife and then expanded to cityscapes, landscapes, and nudes.

“It can take me a couple of hours to take one photo,” he told the Pine Knot during an interview last week. “I’m most satisfied when I find a different way of looking at something.”

His photos of Utah’s kivas and of an exposed iron lift in Prague are examples on exhibit at the Pine Knot Gallery through the end of the year.

On Cline’s website, he shares that “While it's certainly rewarding when people find beauty in any of my images, my real thrill is when they pause to interpret them, trying to find the meaning or, in the case of a few of the abstracts, even to identify what the subject is.”

Photography may seem simple compared to paint on canvas, but Cline says he may go for months without the muse striking, taking shots that aren’t good. And post-processing can be quite challenging. For some series, he creates composites: multiple photos put together, sometimes as many as 30 images. For his photo of an old railroad tunnel through Donner Pass, he metered his camera off the lights above, took multiple exposures and merged them in Photoshop. He doesn’t care for heavily processed photos, so he tries for a “light hand” that will possess both clarity and contrast.

Cline shares that he’s “really bad” at marketing.

“I don’t want to shoot weddings and senior pictures,” he said. “I want to shoot what I love.”

He does hope his work receives more exposure, beyond family and friends. Check out his images at https://www.clinephoto.com/ or better yet, stop by the Pine Knot office and gallery at 122 Avenue C between now and Christmas to check out both Cline’s framed photos and a selection of matted prints as well.