— There’s been a lot of water beneath the bridge since Mark Harlow graduated from Mankato East High School way back when.
In the ensuing decades, Harlow, the son of Roger and Betty Harlow, has been a sheet metal worker, a scanner operator in graphic communications, a salesman, all with a measure of success.
During his graphics communications career, he oversaw the production of most of famed wildlife artist Les Kouba’s prints from 1987 until Kouba’s death in 1995.
(And no, you can’t lay the blame on Harlow for the fading problems in Kouba’s famed and now valuable “Heading for Shelter” pheasant prints. “That was before my time,” Harlow said.)
There was a serious car accident, a career change, a little soul searching about where he had been, where he wanted to go. And finally, there were the swans.
“I was sitting out on a bucket on the ice, fishing on Shingobee Bay on Leech Lake in 2004 and saw these swans land,” he said.
The sight of them was so striking that he was inspired to hustle back to a friend’s house where he had left a spankin’ new digital camera, never used and still in the factory-sealed box, that he had bought several weeks earlier.
Although he had taken photography classes at East High School, digital photography was something new. “I had never used a digital camera, it was like ‘what’s a memory card’ and ‘you have to plug this thing in?’,” he recalled.
By the time he returned to the lake, the trumpeter swans had vanished. But he doggedly waited, hoping they might return. His persistence was rewarded when the pair returned and he managed to make a single photograph of them. His first digital photo — of the swans — turned out to be a favorite of his mother, Betty, whose health was failing.
“Mom just fell in love with it — she said ‘promise me you’ll do something with your photography this time’,” he said. “‘You’ve always had a gift for it and you ought to share it’.”
“I had taken the photography classes at East and had a talent for it but I always put the prints away in a drawer when they were done.”
When his mother passed away a short time later, he weighed his options. He still had the print sales business, White Pine Graphics, that he was running out of Walker. But with his mother’s admonition fresh in his mind, he began to dabble in wildlife and scenic photography part time.
By 2008, the lure of the lens completely won out. He made the plunge into photography full time, a decision that meant going from earning six figures to significantly less than that. “I’m not getting rich,” he admits.
Two years later, he has quietly been building recognition and a reputation as an accomplished outdoor photographer. In addition to opening a retail gallery to display his work, he has designed several websites to showcase his work online.
Unlike many wildlife photographers who augment their print sales with sales to magazines, he prefers to concentrate on the fine art market where his background in graphic arts and prints serves him and his customers well.
He estimates that nowadays, he spends about two-thirds of the year on the road shooting. His Toyota pick-up, which has some 400,000 clicks on it, has taken him throughout the Midwest and western states, even Alaska, to pursue his photographic passion.
His remarkable collection of outdoor images include scenics, grizzlies, fox, coyotes, wild mustangs and eagles — especially eagles.
His reputation as an eagle photographer has made him a regular presenter at the National Eagle Center at Wabasha. He also has been featured on a segment of Kent Hrbek’s outdoor program.
Once a serious hunter, he admits that stalking wildlife up close with a camera has turned him into a bit of a softy. “My buddies call me the tree hugger now,” he said.
Harlow’s work can be viewed at the following websites: www.MarkjHarlow.com, www.WildMustangSite.com, NatureInBlackandWhite.com and EagleLovers.com.
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John Cross is a Mankato Free Press staff writer. Contact him at (507) 344-6376 or jcross@mankatofreepress.com.
