Mark Bergsma's love affair with photography probably began at the age of six. His grandfather fascinated Mark in the dim yellow magic light of the darkroom as the image emerged in the pungent chemicals seemingly from within the paper. Those familiar chemical smells and visions implanted themselves in his emerging memory banks.
"CONSTANTLY I FIND MYSELF PATIENTLY WAITING for an instant of extraordinary beauty, a gesture of nature, a delicate stream of light, a dramatic play of sunlight on sculptured clouds. Photography for me, has become a challenge to perfection as each new image appears before me. Many are discarded at the beginning, never reaching the finished stage. But, for those that do, I still (and probably always will) find myself asking that relentless question... what could I do to make it a more powerful experience for the viewer!"
Mark Bergsma has spent a lifetime photographing his native Northwest, from the San Juan Islands to the Canadian Rockies and the Oregon Coast. Born in Bellingham, Mark grew up surrounded by the natural beauty of the mountains, forests and islands affording him excellent access to a wealth of scenic material for his photographs. A college education at Western Washington University provided him with a Bachelor of Science degree in Visual Communications. Ensuing employment had Mark working in the graphic arts trade in Portland, Oregon where camera work and film preparation for offset lithography built a strong foundation for his photographic knowledge. In 1978, he began to channel his professional efforts into photography, and by 1979, he was printing all his images in his Bellingham darkroom. Mark and his wife Beverly now own and operate the Mark Bergsma Photographer Gallery in downtown Bellingham and it has been open to the public since 1990. A large collection of his best images can be found there.
"I think of light as a luminous ballet of time and circumstance with each new moment portraying a truly unique performance unlikely repeated. It is these divine and fleeting moments of rare and honest beauty revealed to me that become the sweet fruits born of this magnificent voyage of discovery I have thrown myself into. Capture them. Love them and share them, so that others may enjoy them."
