Mark Connelly is a designer, programmer, and photographer currently living in Southern California. Mark has a diverse background with influences from many areas.
Those interests and influences include schooling in architecture, graphic design, art, photography, information research, and computer programming. Career wise, Mark has worked in market research and marketing, in IT as an interface and database systems designer, and as a product designer. Mark has used his photography skills over the years to photograph products for companies and art for artists.
Mark has been involved with photography after getting his first SLR after graduating college. He studied street and studio photography in subsequent years via continuing education courses at UCLA, Art Center College of Design, and from books.
When not doing photography for marketing departments and artists, Mark works on various personal photography projects that include street photography and still life photography. Two of the projects he has been working on for many years includes shooting documentary style photographs of graffiti in Venice, California, and a series of images using seeds and seed pods from trees and other plants he collects.
Below is from the about page on the Seedyphotos.com website
The Seedy Photos site is a creation of California based photographer Mark Connelly. The site showcases his series of images using seeds and seed pods from trees and other plants. The images can be serious or humorous in mood. Mark Connelly has collected thousands of seeds and seed pods from a large number of plant species. The plants currently originate from North America, South America, Central America, Australia, Africa, and China.
How was the idea for this art concept started?
The origination for using seeds and seed pods began many years ago after getting some unshelled macadamia nuts from Hawaii. If you look at a macadamia nut on the tree you will see that it is encased in a woody cover. This cover dries and cracks open. When it does this they begin to look like eyes. From then on, I noticed that seeds and seed pods from trees and all other plants are unique. Plants of the same species may have a similar seed design, but they are never exactly the same. Over the years, I started collecting more and more seeds and seed pods and began creating more images. Most of the designs are spontaneous, in the sense when I look at seed or seed pod an idea hits me. Once an idea hits me, I try to implement variations of the idea. A series of insect scenes began like this. Because of the amazing variety of seeds and seed pods, I realized that they could be thought of as a new artistic medium. Instead of using paint, like a traditional artist would, I would lay down seeds and seed pods to make new compositions. Another interesting aspect is that seeds and seed pods will change over time. They will dry out, change color and often crack. Seeds encased in a fruity cover will be bright and shiny when at peak ripeness. Over time the fruit will dry and darken. This means that there is a time constraint to using some seeds. When I collect those types of seeds, there is not much time to come up with an idea if I want to use the seeds in a fresh state. Collecting seeds and seed pods is also a seasonal business so to speak as you can only collect them usually once a year.
Other photography In addition to seed and seed pod photography, Mark also works in traditional photographic genres. These include fine art, travel, portrait, humor and commercial photography. All of the images on this site are available for purchase. Custom photography is available for both personal and commercial applications such as portrait, model, product, or food photography.
