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.
