A Brief Survey of the Photographer’s Life and Work

A man on a hillside makes a frame with his fingers.
Photograph from Getty

The Photographer obtained his first camera, the one built into his iPhone 4, through an exclusive contractual arrangement with Verizon.

Starting around 2011, he fell in with some of the major exponents of American artistic culture and many great figures of the international avant-garde, mainly by following them on Instagram.

2012 heralded a milestone in the Photographer’s career, in the U.S. and abroad, when he amassed a thousand friends on Facebook, most of whom provided favorable reviews of his œuvre. One of the Photographer’s earliest group portraits, “Marc and the guys at Cindy’s wedding,” garnered such commentary as “O.M.G. Look at Marc!”

A prestigious development occurred in 2013, when the Photographer’s work was exhibited alongside pieces by some of the great American masters. This took place during a trip to the Museum of Modern Art, where the Photographer transgressively appropriated images of Warhol’s “Gold Marilyn Monroe” and Lichtenstein’s “Girl with Ball” and displayed them, albeit fleetingly, on his Snapchat account.

These early efforts received overwhelmingly positive feedback, including from Marc, who wrote, using emoji iconography popular at the time: “Smiley face, first-place medal, Christmas tree—dude, you killed it!”

It was during this period that the Photographer’s fascination with images of cute dogs and blank walls began. His pictures of his cockapoo, Boris, staring quizzically into the camera received overwhelming support from the artistic community, and he began to exhibit at the hashtags #cutedogs and #boringwalls, spaces in which he could freely experiment.

The Photographer’s practice continued to develop, and in this period he abandoned his low-pixel camera for the higher-pixel lens found in the iPhone 6, which came with a device upgrade at no additional charge as a part of the Verizon Family & Friends Unlimited package being marketed at the time.

The new camera proved ideal for the reportage that the Photographer was beginning to explore. This included attempts to photograph from a moving vehicle—even, in some cases, while driving the vehicle himself. In certain images from this period, contemporary sources (such as court records) corroborate that he seems to be driving while under the influence. This was the period during which he made one of his seminal images, “Marc heaving in his car.”

Captured in the rear-view mirror of Marc’s Kia Sonata, the work inspired over a hundred and sixty comments, including “Marc looks sick, man” and “Your work as a photographer is maturing,” which turned out to be the Photographer’s first contact with what became his New York City gallery.

At this point, the Photographer began teaching, and it turned out that he had a deep passion for encouraging young photographers and imparting some of the lessons he had learned, usually through instructive comments on Instagram, such as “Best. Photo. Ever.”; “Are you kidding?”; and “Try a saturated color filter.”

After receiving tremendous public acclaim for his recent work, which combines two of his most enduring artistic concerns—portraits of small, cute dogs staring quizzically at the camera while standing in front of blank walls—the Photographer is contemplating upgrading to an iPhone X.