After graduating from the school of Documentary Photography at Newport College of Art (under the Magnum photographer David Hurn) in 1987, Mark Pinder returned to his home region in the NE of England. In the four decades since, he has carved out a niche as a very versatile and experienced documentary and commercial photographer working regularly for many high profile titles and organisations over those years. Those clients have included many news publications such as the Guardian, The FT, Telegraph, Sunday Times and Der Spiegel, as well as broadcasters such as Channel 4 and the BBC amongst others. He has also worked for many charities and specialist publications, such as Shelter, The BHF, Health Service Journal, Inside Housing etc. As well as gaining a very nuanced understanding of the many issues he has covered, he also has a vast knowledge of the North-east which makes him as much a ‘fixer’ as photographer, with good contacts across the north-eastern social, political, economic, media and business communities. Whilst primarily a photographer, he also has a good working knowledge of video production, sound and editing techniques.
Alongside (and heavily integrated into) his commercial work, he has also managed to quietly maintain a practise as a documentarist of the political and social dynamics of Britain, (and his home region most specifically), and this work is slowly gaining recognition in the gallery and curating worlds. He has published twice with Cafe Royal Books (with a third in the pipeline). He was included in the major European touring group show ‘Facing Britain’ (British Council/IKS Dusseldorf, curator: Ralph Goertz) and the group survey show of NE contemporary art ‘The Everyday Political’ (Southwark Park Gallery, London 2018, curator: George Vasey). In 2020 he was granted £20,000 by the Arts Council and Sunderland University to curate his archive into the show: ’Macromancy, Britain and the NE of England 1986 – 2023’ which was shown at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland in 2023 (co-curator: Alistair Robinson). A 320 page hardback book of the same name was also produced by the German art publisher Kerber (Bielefeld/Berlin) to coincide with the show.
His work is held in several collections including the NGCA (Sunderland), IKS (Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie, Dusseldorf) and The Martin Parr Foundation (Bristol).
